What does it mean for Davis? Let’s discuss in comments . . .
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5th Street’s Hanukkah Swastika
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Comments
12 responses to “5th Street’s Hanukkah Swastika”
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For me personally… I have described things like this before as a gut punch, and that’s only because I don’t have the words to describe the visceral terror and horror a swastika inspires. Some will be inclined to dismiss this as an act of kids or teenagers — teenagers who knew it was the first night of Hanukkah right after the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, I guess — or say, well, it’s because Israel did X, Y, or Z. I think those people can f- right off. How many such incidents do we need? And for politicians who devised the useless “Hate Free Together,” when will these incidents cause a rethink? Do we need our own Bondi Beach incident before that will happen?
I realize that not everyone learned about the Holocaust in the same way that I did. I would encourage those folks to spend time on the website for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Speaking of teenagers, I was shown photos like this at the age of 13 by the instructors at my synagogue, at the request of my fellow students who wanted to learn more about the Holocaust : https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1057957 . I will let it speak for itself.
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I would like to take back the swastika and return it to its rightful owners and take it away from Nazi’s who still seem to own the power of the symbol despite their defeat 80 years ago. I have in the past ‘dismissed’ such tags to a degree as there is usually no clear motive and they are small and obscure. However, the TIMING and PROMINENCE of this swastika implies we have people among us who wish ill of our town’s Jews.
This was very visible but will be denounced as usual and nothing changes; the Human Relations Commission will condemn the swastika, and then have their MAPA report quietly rubber-stamped by the Council in the Consent Calendar early next year (yeah right!), and yet never address the connection.
But I am much more concerned about the genocidal shout of “Death to Israel” and the bull-horned genocidal chant of “kill another hundred now” by face-hidden ‘protesters’ on the UC Davis Campus on October 7th, 2025 — two months ago . . . and the complete and total will of the campus to hide such campus Jew-hate events from the media. But Jew-hatred festering and hidden (by masks) and not at least acknowledged and condemned by leader bureaucrats can’t lead to any real consequences. I’m sure most in Sydney didn’t see it coming either. No I’m not ‘gleeful’ it happened as one sick Australian antizionist journalist named Caitlin Johnstone implied – rather, we are all horrified at the atmosphere that we all saw building to this outcome . . . and we all know this isn’t the last — and the only way I’ll be ‘gleeful’ is if I’m wrong.
Which leads me to the needed action here: Gary May should resign, hanging his head in shame. But unfortunately he won’t, so he is going to have to be exposed widely for his enabling of Jew-hate and suffer forced removal. All he’ll ever do voluntarily is sweep it under rug, write his cutesy little column for the Enterprise, put together powder-puff videos on UCD to keep the naive funders unaware of UCD’s deep scars, and keep on smiling smiling smiling smiling.
This Jew has had quite enough of Gary May. I never thought there could be a worse chancellor than Linda Katehi, but congratulations Gary, you win.
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My view is that we can’t separate the antisemitism that would lead someone to spray paint a swastika (especially on Hanukkah, right after the Bondi Beach attack) from the antisemitism that causes people to laser focus on (in some cases obsess over) Israel’s actions, often very exaggeratedly so and in exclusion of other equivalent or worse actions by other countries. To me, it all has the same origin, and it’s been lurking in societies across the globe for centuries, not by accident but deliberately kept alive.
I think there was a time when the U.S. acknowledged widespread antisemitism and believed that it was our job as decent people to call it out. Silence is, after all, complicity. Then at some point we declared “mission accomplished” (along with racism and sexism) and thought that wasn’t necessary anymore — that antisemitism in the U.S. was no longer a big deal — so now everything gets downplayed or considered an exception. Well, the mission was not accomplished, so my question is, when do we go back to acting like decent people again? (or at least pretending to?)
I’m not going to say that Gary May handled things well, but I think there are larger societal forces at work, which he tried and failed to bumble his way through.
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What does it mean? Exactly what Roberta dismissed (teenagers looking for attention).
As long as folks view it as a “gut punch”, you can be sure that it will continue. Just like the use of the “n” word.
Actually, that does extend to terrorist attacks as well, though (like we just saw in Australia). That’s also why middle-east terrorists behead people, attack the World Trade Center, etc. The shock value; not an actual/realistic attempt to win a war.
Officially “condemning” these actions draws even more attention to them.
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Stick to housing, RO.
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Maybe I’ll volunteer for “late-night teenager” monitoring, instead. (Probably something that their own parents should be doing.)
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Possibly relevant: “Last week, the Yale Youth Poll released its fall survey, which found that “younger voters are more likely to hold antisemitic views than older voters.” When asked to choose whether Jews have had a positive, neutral, or negative impact on the United States, just 8 percent of respondents said “negative.” But among 18-to-22-year-olds, that number was 18 percent. Twenty-seven percent of 18-to-22-year-olds strongly or somewhat agreed that “Jews in the United States have too much power,” compared with 16 percent overall and just 11 percent of those over 65.”
In truth, though, we have no idea of the age of the person(s) who left the graffiti.
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What a shame that there are young people who are defacing Davis with swastikas. Parents need to talk to their children about the horrendous events of the Holocaust and help them understand the extreme slaughter of the Holocaust. It should become a reminder to everyone to care for the disadvantaged state of all colonized groups, including present-day Jews.
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“…young people…” did this? How exactly and where are Jews being “…colonized…”?
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I read it was young people who did the swastikas. I was thinking of antisemitism in respect to colonization. Thanks for questioning my “off the cuff” comment about the swastika. Jan
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JB, I don’t believe the perp(s) has/have been caught, so no way to know the age — I believe that was just speculation. What is different about this swastika in Davis is the PROMINENCE and TIMING the morning after the massacre in Bondi – meaning this one is very likely political and not just ‘drunk kids’ or attention-getting vandalism.
I too am puzzled at your comments about Jews being ‘colonized’. There was a large expulsion and diaspora, followed by a return that some have deemed ‘settler colonialism’ and others ‘indigenous resettling’ depending on one’s perspective — one of largest ‘disagreements’ in world politics. What I’ve not heard of is Jews *being* colonized in any sense.
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As much as this Swastika is infinitely offensive – four of my great-grandparents were murdered and so on – I am much, much more interested in education related to intentionality.
We have a big problem, something I will call the Conflation Industrial Complex: The ruling government in Israel, the apparatus of the state and supporters both domestic and internationally spend a considerable amount of energy conflating Judaism with Israel/ Zionism: Jews belong in Israel, Jews must support Israel, but also “I’m no fan of Netanyahu, but-ism”, often presented in a steamy cake of guilt.
The other piece of the Complex is the predictable reaction: All Jews being blamed for the actions of the government of Israel, their army, citizens, supporters etc. as mentioned.
Is it intentional? I’m not sure.
But even if it’s not intentional, the reaction is certainly a problem: the Israel-supporting entities complain about it.
So, again, what was in the mind of the people or person that did this horrid graffiti? Are they a committed Nazi or Judeophobic* person who just happened to be walking down 5th Street with a can of spray paint, or who intentionally put it at this specific location for some reason, was it a provocateur just trying to stir things up… someone whose family has been recently decimated in Gaza and for likely nuanced reasons has fallen into the conflation trap, is it a local or visitor who simply hates all Jews and Israelis (and much of the US government which has supported Israeli actions before and after October 7th with millions of dollars in weapons?
My intention is not deflection, only education.
I 100% agree about “Hate Free Together”.
In regards to the obsession or disproportionate reaction to Israeli government actions in Gaza, I 100% agree that, ideally, other murders and wars and genocide should get a similar or stronger response, based on overall amount of suffering and slaughter. First of all, there’s a significant difference here because the US and many of its allies have supported Israel with taxes from citizens… But I think that the most important thing to say is that the the protest to other ongoing crimes such as is happening in Sudan, or China, or recently in Syria and so on should take inspiration from the response to the Israeli government and try to do the same or more.
But the education approach should tell us that we should determine exactly how much of the protest against Israeli actions has a basis in Judeophobia – clearly some of it does, and a lot of people on the Left like me acknowledge it.
* I think I’m going to start using the term Judeophobia instead of antisemitism. It’s useful, first of all, because it’s an equivalent term to Islamophobia. Also, I agree with a view that Semite really only refers to a language family, but still a lot of people including Arabs themselves to find themselves as semites, so at the very least it’s a sloppy term. Perhaps use of this term could facilitate a well-considered response to the conflation machine and reality I mentioned above. (I spell the current term antisemitism instead of anti-Semitism to help make it clear that, objectively, Semites aren’t really a thing.)
Davisite 
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