OAK PARK — A string of hate crimes across Oak Park and Royal Oak are causing concern and distress in the Jewish community.
7 Action News has learned that in Oak Park swastikas have been drawn on a person's car and a family stroller.
In Royal Oak a swastika and the letters AZOV were spray painted on the front of the Woodward Avenue Shul.
Tamar and Shaul Anthony live at the Oak Park where the stroller was vandalized.
Tamar said, "In the afternoon I just went outside, I looked and I noticed this drawing on our stroller."
Tamar and Shaul have three kids who they haven't talked to about what a swastika means or antisemitism in general.
However they say with acts of hate like this on the rise, they know they'll have to.
"It’s kind of scary that someone came up to our property and were like ‘Hey there are Jews here, we don’t like you,'" said Tamar.
Shaul said unfortunately it doesn't surprise him, "In my hometown I’ve had people yell things out the window at me."
As far as what AZOV means?
Rabbi Mendel Polter at Woodward Avenue Shul said, "I put AZOV into google, the top search item that came up was a pro-Nazi Ukrainian militia."
He also said that AZOV means "leave" in Hebrew.
"I have ancestors who went through the holocaust," said Polter. "I have relatives who were killed by the Nazis, the swastika represents everything that in the last century was the greatest antithesis of Judaism."
The number of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. last year was the highest since the Anti-Defamation League started keeping track in 1979.
A new report from the league counted 3,697 incidents in 2022, a 36% increase from 2021.
The Royal Oak and Oak Park police departments are investigating these local hate crimes.
They ask if you know anything to reach out to them.
Polter says he's already received a large outpouring of support, and for that the Jewish community says thank you.
"They’re trying to instill fear, they’re trying to channel our energies into fighting them and we have so much better to do," said Polter.
