Tell us again how the anti-Semitic upsurge is all in our imagination. We keep forgetting. From KNBC [2], Los Angeles, Sept. 22:
ENCINO, Calif. -- Two flags depicting Nazi swastikas were draped over a freeway overpass in Encino on Friday, on the eve of the Jewish High Holy Days.
Authorities began receiving calls around 5:45 a.m. that the flags were hanging from the Balboa Boulevard overcrossing to the eastbound Ventura (101) Freeway, said California Highway Patrol Officer Francisco Villalobos.
"Obviously, they're offensive, and a huge distraction," CHP Officer Leland Tang said in a televised news report.
Officers went to the location and removed the banners.
Swastika symbols were displayed about the same time from two freeway overpasses in San Diego County.
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, begins at sundown.
To Jews around the world, the swastika is a hated reminder of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis.
Hanging any kind of flag or sign from an overpass is illegal, authorities said.
"It's obviously not a coincidence that they're doing it on the High Holy Days," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "It's a reminder that there are racists and bigots and anti-Semites out there.
Cooper said he and many Southland Jews will welcome the new year by praying for world peace, and that members of the local Jewish community were more concerned with events in Israel, Iran and Lebanon than swastikas on a freeway.
"This is an act of hate that hurts and angers, but it pales in comparison that you have a regime in Iran that is having Holocaust cartoon contests ... and is set to be the next member of the nuclear club," Cooper said.
See our last posts on resurgent Jew-hatred and Hitler-nostalgia [3] from California [4] to Bombay [5]. Even the Pope [6] is getting in on the act. Iran [7] seems almost too obvious to mention.
