Salem Church Banner Supporting Peace In Israel Vandalized

SALEM, MA — A church banner supporting peace in Israel that Pastor Rob Parady said has been connected to the Wesley Methodist Church for more than a quarter-century will soon be replaced after the latest in a series of vandalism attempts.

Parady said the banner reading "We Support Israel In Her Quest For Peace" has been damaged several times over the last 25 years — including at least three times since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel — with the latest vandalism occurring last week when someone crossed out the word
"Peace" in red paint and scrawled the word "Genocide" in its place.

"We are 100 percent going to replace that sign anytime anything like that is done to it," Parady told Patch on Monday.

He said the sign dates back long before the latest conflict in the Middle East to about 25 years ago when a group of Israeli teens coming to Salem to do some work had their housing fall through and the church provided them a place to stay. Longtime church members bought the banner and put it up to make the teens feel supported in their stay and the church decided to leave it up after they departed.

"Over the years occasionally it has been damaged and we have replaced it," he said. "Often we get a lot of hate mail and phone calls concerning that. It's been upped a bit since October 7."

Parady said he had security cameras installed to try to capture anyone vandalizing the sign but that they were offline the night of the incident last week. He said the church filed a police report and that he was told the paint used was similar to other cases of "tagging" city buildings in recent weeks.

He said the message of the sign is not a desire of the church to back one side over another in the conflict but an embracing of the greater message of the pursuit of peace for all.

"We are not saying that we want the destruction of anybody for Israel's peace," he said. "We are praying for peace for everybody. We want peace for Palestine. We want peace throughout the world.

"My concern is that while we may have a difference of opinion with people, those people wouldn't want us to stop their freedom of speech. They are trying to stop our freedom of speech."

He said that while the vandalized sign was still up as of Monday he plans to get a replacement in short order and that the cameras are once again functional "so if it happens again we can catch who did it."

"I would just like people to know that we love the Palestinians," he said. "We love everyone even if they are against us. If we don't do it perfectly, we apologize. We are trying to do it perfectly.

"I hope people will respect our right to free speech. We will continue to support Israel's quest for peace."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)