Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer turned anti-semitic graffiti outside his home in Portland, Oregon on 14 August 2016 into a message of love and hours later posted his experience on Facebook, reports Lizzy Acker in the Oregon Live website on 16th August 2016.
The graffiti reads “Jews aren’t welcome” and “we hate Jews and n*ggers”, and also features several swastikas.
In a link from the Oregon article to Rabbi Mayer’s Facebook account he described the abuse as a random hate event; he expressed feeling shaken and together with his supportive neighbours tried to figure out who might of done this and why in a residential area that is ethnically diverse. On the driveway outside his home Rabbi Mayer and his family including his children wipe away the chalked abuse and a Nazi swastikas, then replaced them with chalk hearts and messages of love, such as “Love always wins”. He wrote that the random acts of love in his neighbourhood and on social media helped him : “There is something about the randomness of a hateful occurrence that required the randomness of a stranger’s love.” The full article and link to Rabbi Mayer’s Facebook comments can be found here.