Milwaukee mural showing swastika with Star of David draws condemnation

A mural in Milwaukee, which shows a Nazi swastika intertwined with a Jewish Star of David, is drawing condemnation.

The mural, which has since been vandalized, includes the text “the irony of becoming what you once hated” and suggests Jewish people are perpetrating another Holocaust against Palestinians. It depicts a bombed-out city where drones fly overhead, as women hold children and a swing set sits empty.

The Milwaukee Jewish Federation described the mural, which is located on a privately owned building in the city’s Riverwest neighborhood, as “horribly antisemitic” in a Facebook post Thursday.

Scholar of antisemitism says imagery ties all Jewish people to state of Israel

Syracuse University Assistant Professor Britt Tevis studies antisemitism and Jewish history. After seeing a picture of the mural, she said she felt her “heart sinking.”

“It’s obvious that the image is going to contribute to further pain on the part of American Jews,” she said.

Tevis said she’s troubled by the way that the mural visually combines a Nazi symbol with the Star of David.

“To my eye, the mural intentionally attempts to implicate Jews writ large for the actions of the Israeli government, and it does so by taking a universal Jewish symbol, the star of David, and attempts to merge it with a swastika,” she said. “This effort to blame global Jewry for the actions, specifically, of Israel is something we’ve seen for decades, really since the establishment of the state of Israel.”

Tevis says there are legitimate ways to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“I certainly sympathize with a desire to highlight the humanitarian crisis there,” she said. “But doing so by using a symbol that represents a broader community of Jews worldwide, to my mind, does so in ways that involve antisemitism.”

Tevis says the practice of making equivalencies between Jews and Nazis has a “disturbing” precedent.

“The conflation of Jews with Nazis is partaking, whether knowingly or not, in the minimization of the Holocaust, which is really a part of this larger movement of Holocaust denial,” she said.

Owner of building defends mural

The mural is on a Holton Street building owned by landlord Ishan Atta.

Atta said two artists painted the mural, which went up Wednesday.

In an interview with WPR, Atta said he believes the mural’s use of the Star of David is appropriate because that symbol is on the Israeli flag and is used by the Israeli military.

“The mural is clearly not antisemitic. People try to use that term to stifle or silence any criticism or Israel,” Atta said. “It’s directed at Zionism, not Judaism. We have plenty of Jewish brothers and sisters that support (the mural’s message), that stand side-by-side with us as we protest this genocide.”

Atta says he hopes the mural sends a message to politicians in a crucial election year.

“People of conscience don’t stand or support this genocide,” he said. “They don’t want their tax dollars to continue to fund a genocide when we need the money here, whether it’s for health care or education, or any other programs.”

As of Friday morning, someone had defaced the mural with black paint, though much of that paint has since been removed. The vandalism has been reported to police, and the incident was caught on camera, Atta said.

In a statement Friday, Milwaukee Jewish Federation President Miryam Rosenzweig said the mural was not intended to “change anything on the ground” in Israel and Gaza.

“It has no capacity to do that,” Rosenzweig added. “It’s only meant to be hurtful to our entire community, including our Holocaust survivors who see it.”

State Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, was among those who spoke out against the mural on social media this week.

“You can’t superimpose a swastika on the Star of David & pretend it’s anything but anti-Semitic hate,” Subeck wrote on the platform X.

Argument erupts as crowd gathers around mural

As of Friday afternoon, a small crowd had gathered around the new mural.

Milwaukee resident Marty Horning said he lives in the neighborhood and thinks the mural’s message is “beautiful.”

“I think that what’s happening in Gaza, in the West Bank, right now is in fact Nazism or equivalent to Nazism, and people should not be intimidated by the antisemitic charges from speaking the truth,” he said.

Soon, a verbal argument erupted between Horning and several other men.

One of those men, Zechariah Mehler, told WPR he’s part of the Hasidic Jewish community on Milwaukee’s west side, and said he often has to drive by the mural’s location.

“Words are being appropriated like ‘genocide’ and ‘colonialism’ that are being targeted at my people,” he said. “It’s creating a high level of antisemitism that people are not really acknowledging or recognizing, and it’s scary and inappropriate.”

Before putting up the latest mural, Atta used the space for a mural depicting Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was fatally shot by by Louisville police during a botched raid on her apartment.

Evan Casey contributed reporting.