Vandal draws swastikas on apartment building of gay, Jewish lawmaker Joe Vogel

Vandals have drawn swastikas on the apartment building of Maryland State Del. Joe Vogel (D), an out gay and Jewish lawmaker. While it’s unclear whether the vandals have deliberately targeted him, the symbols have appeared at least three times on his Gaithersburg city apartment building over the past few months.

The 26-year-old lawmaker shared photos of the vandalism on X. The photos showed the symbols drawn upon a lobby door in his building. He said that antisemitic attacks have increased in his county and state following Hamas’ recent attack against Israel in Gaza. Since the attack, he has seen armed police guarding Maryland’s Jewish temples during the faith’s high holiday season.

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“We’re seeing a surge in antisemitic hate crimes across the country and across the state,” Vogel said.

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“To see it in my own apartment building, in my own community, the place that I call home, it’s really unsettling,” Vogel told WUSA.

“That kind of hate, those kinds of messages, that vandalism sends a really dark message to me and others in our community, but it won’t make us afraid,” he added.

Swastikas in my apartment building lobby again.

The surge in antisemitism isn’t some distant phenomenon— it’s happening right here in our own community as well. https://t.co/pEcIrqNX6t pic.twitter.com/mNqxtn4uTv

— Joe Vogel (@JoeVogel_) October 16, 2023

Web commenters pointed out that the swastikas’ arms point counterclockwise and aren’t tilted at a 45-degree angle, making them resemble Indian swastikas more than Nazi ones. While Indian swastikas symbolize good luck and prosperity in Eastern religions, in the United States and other Western countries, swastikas usually symbolize Nazism, antisemitism, and white supremacy.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that tracks antisemitic and other hate-based attacks, said that the number of reported antisemitic attacks reported in Maryland nearly doubled from 55 in 2021 to 109 in 2022. This year so far, there have been 68 such incidents reported in Maryland, the ADL reported.

Meredith Weisel, the regional director for ADL Washington, D.C. told MoCo360 there has been a 1,000% increase in non-specific threats against Jewish people and Israelis in the U.S. since Hamas attacked Isreal on October 7.

“In the D.C. region in the Jewish community, we have seen a lot of hurt and a lot of angst amongst people, because this impacts us here,” Weisel said. “We’ve started seeing this increase in protests and individuals being targeted and harassment online.”

Zainab Chaudry, the Maryland director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the aforementioned publication that there have also been increases in anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim hate incidents since October 7.

“This is a direct consequence of the very one-sided narrative in a political discourse within our country from the top highest levels of the government down to the local government and not just elected officials,” Chaudry said. “We need our elected leaders to speak out and to express solidarity with all people who are suffering injustices.”

Vogel supports Israel and also supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. While studying as an undergraduate at George Washington University, he opposed a student government resolution pressuring the university to divest from companies that allegedly violated Palestinian human rights.

Noting a general increase in hate crimes throughout his state, Vogel introduced a bill during the most recent legislative session to establish a commission on hate crime response and prevention. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed the bill into law earlier this year.

Vogel is running for a U.S. House seat. If successful, he’d become the first out LGBTQ+ person ever elected to Congress from Maryland and the second Gen Z person elected to Congress from any state. His campaign launch video criticized Republicans for forcing people “to become a parent before you’re ready” and telling students “what books you can read, and what gender you are, and who you can love.”

“I’m a progressive, but I’m also a progressive who wants to deliver,” Vogel told The Daily Beast in July. “We can have these bold ideas and this bold, progressive vision for the future, but if we’re not getting anything done for people, it doesn’t matter.”