Antisemitic graffiti found outside YMCA in Charlotte after JCC softball games

Charlotte, N.C. Credit: Precisionviews via Wikimedia Commons.

Vandals spray-painted racist rhetoric and swastikas on Sept. 9 at the Morrison Family YMCA of Greater Charlotte in Charlotte, N.C.

The phrase “save the white race” was scrawled outside, and a swastika was graffitied onto a YMCA daycare bus. “Matthew 23:13-36” was written on the sidewalk, also with a swastika. That section of Matthew contains invective against “Pharisees,” with several quotations that later became antisemitic tropes.

Local Jewish Community Center sports leagues had just had softball games at neighboring Ballantyne Park, which has a partnership with the Y, when the graffiti was discovered.

“We were deeply disheartened to find that our property had been vandalized with hate speech and symbols,” the YMCA said in a statement. “We immediately notified law enforcement, and our team is working diligently to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte released a statement saying that it “condemns these actions in the strongest of terms” and remains committed to fighting “antisemitism and preventing incidents like these from happening in the future.”