San Jose State investigating graffiti found on campus calling for ‘eradication of Jews’

Racist graffiti at San Jose State has the Jewish community on campus on high alert, after the messages scrawled on building walls this week called for the “eradication of Jews.”

The graffiti threatened the eradication of Jews on campus on March 11 and 12, along with the phrases “make Osama proud,” “avoid SJSU 4 Muslims” and “Kill all Jews”.

“What we’ve seen on this campus this week was words, not physical violence,” SJSU Jewish Faculty and Staff Assoc. President Philip Heller said. “We have seen physical violence in the past and my concern is that we’ll see more.”

University police say they are investigating, but Heller says the fear is still real – especially for students.

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Heller says students were offered a counseling session from the school and no one came.

“As far as I can tell, the reason was that they didn’t think it was a good idea to get that many Jewish students together in one place on this campus during a time of threat,” Heller said.

Heller says there have been other antisemitic incidents on campus in the past, including more graffiti that we reported on just a few months ago.

Along with threats of violence, there were words targeting Chinese, Muslim and Jewish students.

The latest instances of racist graffiti at San Jose State surround an alleged antisemitic attack nearby at Santana Row, where two men said that they were jumped simply for being Jewish.

VIDEO: San Jose police investigating possible hate crime after 2 Jewish men attacked at Santana Row

San Jose police are investigating a possible hate crime after two men said they were injured after being jumped in Santana Row.

“It’s quite a scary time,” Heller said.

The university sent out a campus-wide message Friday afternoon that said the graffiti was removed from the campus bathroom and no evidence has been identified to indicate a credible threat.

But that doesn’t mean anyone on campus feels at ease.

“Nowhere is a place where this should be happening,” Heller said. “We need to have a lot of listening and talking. And I am happy to say that there’s been quite a bit of movement and genuine interest on the part of the administration in making things much safer for Jews.”

But Heller says there’s still a long way to go and he hopes work to make everyone on campus feel safe starts right now.

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