Mayor Speaks On School Swastika Incident

The following is a post from Mayor Dolan on his blog regarding the incident at Roosevelt Elementary. You can read a Patch submission by Rabbi Arnie Fertig of Temple Beth Shalom here.

"As some of you may already know, we discovered a swastika carved into a piece of playground equipment at the Roosevelt School on Tuesday. This is not the first time this has happened in Melrose over the last year.

This hateful act is an attack not just on our Jewish friends but on our community as a whole. An attack on any group is an attack on all of us.

Although we don’t know who did this terrible thing, often when something like this happens, we point to youth and dismiss it as kids who don’t understand what they are doing.

But that’s too simple an explanation. We see white supremacists and neo-Nazis on the news and in social media quite often now. Our young people are smart, they are observant, and they are taking notice.

That’s why it’s important that we speak up—in public, in our houses of worship, and most importantly, in our homes. It is my hope that parents, grandparents, caregivers, will sit with their children and talk to them about how harmful this act was and the hatred that the swastika represents.

“The swastika is clearly a symbol of hate,” Rabbi Arnie Fertig told me, “and to put it on school property is a desecration. It is hurtful to us, your neighbors and your friends. It is hurtful to everyone around you, whether you know it or not.” I couldn’t agree with him more.

In November, we will dedicate a new World War II monument to those great Americans who fought against the Nazis and Fascism and stood proudly for the American ideals of freedom, justice and peace. Although very few of those heroes who saved the world are still with us, they truly understood what Nazism was—and how truly un-American it is to spread hate against others because of who they are.

Although this is an incredibly horrible act, it is an opportunity to reaffirm our values, to educate young and old, and to reject hate in all forms. Now is the time for each of us to stand up and say “Not here. Not in our schools. Not in our city. Not ever.”