By PENNY KMITT, WBZ-TV
WORCESTER – A billboard with an anti-Hamas message was found vandalized Christmas morning with a statement about Israel.
The billboard on Route 290 west in Worcester originally read, “Let’s be clear: Hamas is your problem too.” It now says, “Let’s be clear: Hamas is freeing Palestine” with an added footnote reading, “Israel murdered 25,000 people.”
“Good versus evil, that’s what it’s all about, good versus evil,” Rabbi Mendel Fogelman, the director of central Massachusetts Chabad, told WBZ-TV. “These are people who are promoting killing of Jews, that’s what they’re doing when they do stuff like that.”
According to the Jewish Federation of central Massachusetts, the billboard was originally put up as part of a “JewBelong” campaign, a nationwide program meant to stop antisemitism. Fogelman said antisemitism has been on the rise since the war began.
“You see what’s going on in Harvard, you see what’s going on in all the other colleges, you see what’s going on throughout the whole country and it’s unfortunate but that’s the situation,” said Fogelman. “Would be nice to see the colleges would do something like fire those presidents and to set a message clear. And those students should get in trouble too.”
WBZ reached out to the Palestinian Community of Boston Monday but did not hear back.
Massachusetts State Police have jurisdiction over the road but WBZ didn’t hear back about a potential investigation.
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