Sophie Carson
A new mural on a prominent street corner suggests Jewish people are carrying out a new Holocaust and intertwines a Star of David and a swastika.
The mural carries the words, "The irony of becoming what you once hated," in all capital letters.
Milwaukee Jewish community leaders Thursday decried it as "vile" and "horribly antisemitic."
"This mural is not intended to actually change anything on the ground (in Israel and Gaza). It has no capacity to do that. It's only meant to be hurtful to our Holocaust survivors who see it," said Miryam Rosenzweig, president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
The mural is posted on a building at the corner of North Holton and East Locust streets owned by Ihsan Atta, a Palestinian-American landlord who is the registered agent for the property management company Fala7 Investments LLC.
The mural replaced one on Breonna Taylor that was well-known to those in the area. Taylor, a Black woman, was shot and killed in her home in 2020 by Louisville police during a botched raid. The police killings of Taylor and George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests about police violence. Another prominent mural of Floyd on a building also owned by Atta remains at the corner of East North Avenue and North Holton Street.
Atta told WTMJ-TV in June that he was planning to replace the Taylor mural with a pro-Palestinian one to call attention to the Israel-Hamas war. He told the Journal Sentinel Thursday that he kept the Taylor mural after removing it and plans to either give it to Taylor's family or hang it somewhere else in the Riverwest neighborhood.
Rosenzweig said the mural aims to "scare the Jewish community, to threaten them, and to harass and intimidate." It also denies the atrocities of the Holocaust by equating it to the Israel-Hamas war, she said.
"It's very much trying to blame all Jews," Rosenzweig said, adding that a key antisemitic trope is blaming all Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government.
The new mural includes images of drones, bombed-out buildings, women wearing head coverings carrying children, an apparent mass grave and an empty swing set.
Rosenzweig said the mural aims to "scare the Jewish community, to threaten them, and to harass and intimidate." It also denies the atrocities of the Holocaust by equating it to the Israel-Hamas war, she said.
"It's very much trying to blame all Jews," Rosenzweig said, adding that a key antisemitic trope is blaming all Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government.
The phrase on the mural is found in some pro-Palestinian art and online memes. Atta said he created the idea for the mural in collaboration with some local tattoo artists, and he argued it was not antisemitic to compare the Holocaust and Israel's devastation in Gaza. The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews.
"The fact that (Rosenzweig) says that it relates the Holocaust to what's going in Gaza is exactly the point. It is what's going on. It is a holocaust that's going on," Atta said. "For her to say that it's comparable, she's absolutely right."
Atta has previously compared Israel to Nazi Germany. Two days ago he reposted a meme on Instagram that attempted to draw similarities between Adolf Hitler and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He argued that it was OK to combine the Star of David and swastika symbols because, he said, the star is used not only as a religious symbol, but a political symbol. It is found on the Israeli Air Force insignia.
"The swastika, to me, is equivalent to the Star of David," Atta said.
Atta also disagreed with the concept that Jewish residents could feel threatened by the mural. He said he thought Jewish people "should be able to relate" to how painful a genocide is for a population.
"I think the only people that are being threatened are the Palestinians," he said, whose perspective he argued was being stifled on the global stage.
Atta is the brother of two prominent local Muslim leaders: Othman Atta, executive director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee — the state's largest mosque, and Janan Najeeb, president of the Milwaukee Muslim Women's Coalition.
Since the mural is on a privately owned building, the Milwaukee Jewish Federation is not planning to take any steps to try to have it removed, Rosenzweig said.
"For those who see this imagery, I would ask you to stand up against this level of hate — to see it for what it is — as you would stand up for hate against anyone," she said.
Sophie Carson is a general assignment reporter who reports on religion and faith, immigrants and refugees and more. Contact her at scarson@gannett.com or 920-323-5758.
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