Palm Beach Synagogue plans Saturday event in response to antisemitic messages
"We cannot remain silent. We need to respond to this."
Those were the words of Rabbi Moshe Scheiner of Palm Beach Synagogue on Thursday as he spoke about Saturday night's incident where antisemitic messages were projected onto the side of an AT&T building at 325 Gardenia St. in West Palm Beach.
In response to the "hateful" messages, the synagogue has put together a community "havdalah'' ceremony at 6:45 p.m. Saturday at the same site that is open to people of all faiths.
"We're coming together as a community to raise our voices against hate," Scheiner said. "We're going to spread a message of love."
Last Saturday, West Palm Beach police received calls about hateful images and messages projected onto the side of the building. Near the building in a public garage, officers found two men wearing masks, as well as a rented truck with a projector and a generator, West Palm Beach police spokesman Mike Jachles said.
No arrests were made, but the police department is still investigating.
In what officials say is a related incident aimed at tainting celebratory Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. events, residents of a Boca Raton neighborhood found antisemitic flyers sitting in their driveways and on their front yards on Saturday. The flyers, packed into Ziploc bags, displayed what one resident described as an obscene, antisemitic message.
Several speakers, including Scheiner, are scheduled to participate in the "Dispel Darkness with Light" ceremony. The Rev. Robert Norris of Royal Poinciana Chapel, Rabbi Michael Resnick of Temple Emanu-El, State Attorney Dave Aronberg, county Mayor Gregg Weiss, Capt. Brian Kapper of the West Palm Beach Police Department, and Dr. Irving Berkowitz, the son of two Holocaust survivors, are scheduled to speak.
More:Officials: Boca Raton, West Palm Beach antisemitic displays during weekend are related
"It's very important for there to be a response," Scheiner said. "It really touches a nerve.''
Rabbi Shneor Minsky, who runs the Downtown Jewish WPB group, an outreach program of Palm Beach Synagogue that's a co-sponsor of the event, lives two blocks from Gardenia Street. He said he can see the building where the messages were shown from his home.
He said the images reminded him of 1930s Germany, when the persecution of Jews started with hate speech and quickly spread to the horrors of the Holocaust. Like Scheiner, he said there needs to be a counter to the hate that was spewed.
"It's an easy group to blame problems on," he said of the Jewish people. "It keeps being repeated throughout history."
The havdalah ceremony is expect to last 45 minutes and West Palm Beach Police have agreed to block Gardenia Street for an hour, Minsky said. The ceremony includes blessings over lights, wine (or grape juice) and spices, and is intended to bring the peace and tranquility of the sabbath into people's lives for the next week.
"What we represent is unity. We're going to speak words of unity," he said.
The Gross Family Center for the Study of Antisemitism and the Holocaust, also affiliated with the synagogue, is co-sponsoring along with the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County and Temple Beth El of West Palm Beach.
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Reporting from Jasmine Fernandez and Wayne Washington of the Palm Beach Post were included in this story.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Synagogue plans Saturday event in response to antisemitic messages
