Anchorage rabbi calls for acts of kindness as police, FBI investigate swastika stickers

Museum Director Rabbi Yosef Greenberg and Curator Leslie Fried stand in front of the Alaska Jewish Museum. (Matt Fabion/Alaska Public Media)

The director and curator of the Alaska Jewish Museum said they were shocked when they found several stickers showing a swastika on the windows of their museum, but they say they won’t be intimidated by the harassment.

“This was one individual,” said Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, the museum director. “This is not what Anchorage is all about.”

Police and the FBI are investigating the stickers, which show a black swastika and the words “we are everywhere.” The stickers were reported by the Jewish Museum and Mad Myrna’s, a gay bar in downtown Anchorage, on Tuesday. Police released an alert about the vandalism on Wednesday evening along with a request for the public to help identify a suspect.

On Tuesday afternoon museum curator Leslie Fried was tending to a flower bed in front of the modest museum in Midtown Anchorage when she spotted a sticker on the window.

Nazi themed stickers. (Photo from Anchorage Police Department)

“I just looked up like this and I went ‘oh my God,’” she said.

Fried said she stood there, stunned, for several seconds before peeling it off to show her boss, Rabbi Greenberg, who worked in an office across the street. When they walked around the building, they found several more stickers. The residue was still visible on the windows on Thursday afternoon.

“When I saw Leslie was a little bit shaken up, I felt that I needed to be the one to be calm,” Greenberg said. “And I said, ‘Let’s not worry about it. Just put it back on there. And we’ll call the FBI, we’ll call the police.’”

They also reviewed security footage from the museum and found video of a man in a dark hoodie riding in on an electric skateboard around 2 a.m. the morning before. He appeared to paste stickers on the windows but had his face covered.

It’s not the first time Greenberg has had to call authorities about incidents like this. There have been other vandals and a bomb threat. Greenberg said that he also called the Department of Homeland Security. The center had previously received a grant for security from the department.

“In the next few weeks the entire time with both of the buildings open, we will have security guards here with everything,” he said. “The security people need to secure this place. So we are taking this very seriously.”

The incident comes at a difficult time for the Jewish community. Nationwide, synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses have faced a wave of vandalism after recent violence between Israel and Palestine, according to The New York Times. But Greenberg said he’s not living in fear.

“For someone coming in the middle of the night, it’s being a coward — coming in middle of the night and hiding and putting a sticker. That’s the only purpose of this is to get publicity, to put fear,” he said.

Greenberg and Fried said they’ve received dozens of messages of support after the incidents were publicized, including from an executive at Alaska Airlines and from Julie Sullivan, the wife of U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan.

The community support shows that there is much more tolerance than hate in Anchorage, they said. They’re confident that the police will catch the culprit. And in the meantime, Greenberg asked a favor of community members who want to show support.

“The best way to support the Jewish community is by doing an act of goodness and kindness, being kind to your neighbor, being kind to your friend, being kind to family,” he said.

Alaska Public Media

Alaska Public Media is one of our partner stations in Anchorage. KTOO collaborates with partners across the state to cover important news and to share stories with our audiences.

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