Philadelphia, PA – Police are investigating a potential hate crime after an antisemitic graffiti tag was discovered on a vacant building near a Jewish fraternity house on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus on Friday night.
The spray-painted graffiti tag reading “The Jews R Nazis” was found on a vacant building next door to the university’s fraternity chapter house for Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), a 110-year-old Jewish fraternity with 146 active chapters worldwide. The graffiti was discovered around 11:30 p.m. on Friday by members of AEPi, who then covered it with duct tape and reported it to Penn’s Division of Public Safety.
Penn campus public safety officials said in a statement that they are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime and “are providing support to the reporting parties.”
The vacant property on which the graffiti was found is owned by Campus Apartments, which as the Daily Pennsylvanian report pointed out, is owned Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance chairperson David Adelman. It is not known whether Friday’s act of vandalism was intended to target the AEPi or Campus Apartments directly.
