Religious Leaders Speak Out Against Anti-Semitic Signs Found In Algoma

Religious leaders from across northeastern Wisconsin are speaking out against anti-Semitic signs that appeared late last month.

They say the signs weren’t just an attack on Jewish people, but on the entire community.

The Algoma police department is working with the FBI to investigate the signs that appeared on the night of July 30.

Sixty church communities have signed an open letter decrying the anti-Jewish signs that cropped up in Algoma before they were removed by the police. Besides several of the state’s synagogues, the denominations include Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Methodists.

Rabbi Shaina Bacharach is with the Cnesses Israel in Green Bay. She says she is encouraged by the inter-denominational support and hopes authorities catch the person or persons who put the signs up around the small northeastern Wisconsin town. ‘I’d like to see them arrested. I’d like to see people of faith know that we don’t do this.”

Bacharach says signs included crude swastikas, and said things like “Kill the Jews.” She says they fall under the federal definition of a “hate crime.”

“That’s the kind of sight that most of us don’t see,” says Bacharach. “It does take you back to Nazi Germany.”

The bishop of Green Bay’s Catholic Diocese David Ricken signed the open letter, and calls the signs “hurtful” and “offensive.” He says he stands with the area’s Jewish community in condemning the signs.