We are not ashamed: in Phoenix, a Jewish family wants to leave an anti-Semitic inscription

Photo: The Republic

When Shoshana and Ari Simons came home after a long weekend and meeting with friends and relatives in Atlanta, they noticed that some papers were pasted on their mailbox.

At first, they thought that they had missed a notification about new neighbors, so they went into the house, put their daughter to bed, and only then returned to see what the papers were in the mailbox.

It turned out that under the papers the vandals wrote the word “Jew” for graffiti and drew a swastika. A neighbor wrote to them in a letter that she saw it on Tuesday morning and pasted paper on top to hide the inscription.

Photo: The Republic

The Simons are Jewish. According to Shoshana, Ari's grandparents survived the Holocaust as teenagers, but lost their families.

“It pains me to see this 80 years later,” she said. “Devastation is the only word we can use to describe what happened.”

Anti-semitism

29-year-old Shoshana is a wish manager at Make-A-Wish Arizona — helps create plans to make children's wishes come true. Ari, 30, works for the Arizona Department of Child Safety. In their entire lives, they have never experienced oppression because of their religion.

“We love our area. There are a lot of Jewish families here, we live very close to our synagogue,” says Shoshana.

Near the front door of their Phoenix home hangs a mezuzah—a scroll of duhsustus parchment made from the skin of a ritually clean (kosher) animal, affixed to the outside doorpost of a Jewish home, containing part of the text of the Shema prayer.

Phoenix police opened an investigation into the incident, Sergeant Jonathan Howard said on Wednesday, July 4.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (an organization dedicated to combating any manifestation of anti-Semitism and insulting Jews in the USA), in 2016, the number of anti-Semitic incidents, including assault, harassment and vandalism throughout the country, increased by 34% compared to last year.

In the first quarter of this year, an 86% jump was observed in the number of incidents.

In Arizona, 2015 registered cases of anti-Semitism in 4 and 10 in 2016. In the first quarter of this year, 14 cases were reported.

On Wednesday morning, the couple decided to remove the paper so that people could see the graffiti.

Photo: The Republic

“We’re not going to let this scare us,” Shoshana said. “We are angry, hurt and disappointed, but we are not afraid, and we are not ashamed, and we are proud to be Jewish.”

Simons have not yet decided how to deal with graffiti: paint over or leave the word "Jews."

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