Swastikas spray-painted at Jerusalem offices of Bnei Akiva youth movement

By Charlie Summers

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16 September 2025, 1:18 pm

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Swastikas spray-painted outside the offices of the Bnei Akiva movement in Jerusalem on September 16, 2025. (Courtesy Bnei Akiva)

Swastikas are spraypainted in blue paint outside the Jerusalem offices of the religious Zionist Bnei Akiva movement this morning, in what the organization is decrying as an antisemitic incident.

One swastika is graffitied on the entrance to the building, under the movement’s sign. Another piece of graffiti appears to equate the movement to Nazism. The graffiti shows an equal sign between a swastika on one side, and two Hebrew letters representing the movement’s motto, “Torah va’avodah,” meaning “Torah and work,” on the other.

It is the fourth time the symbol has been found in front of the movement’s headquarters in the capital, says Bnei Akiva secretary general Yigal Klein.

Klein notes that one of the movement’s executive staffers, Sarah Mendelson, was murdered in the terror attack at Ramot Junction last week, while on her way to work.

“Just yesterday the shiva ended for Sarita Mendelson, may God avenge her blood, who was murdered on her way to the very building on which swastikas were drawn,” says Klein. “It is hard to believe that over 80 years after the Holocaust, we are witnessing antisemitism in Israel in 2025.”

Despite receiving several complaints reporting the string of incidents, police have not arrested any suspects in the repeated vandalism, Klein says.

Police have yet to respond to a request for comment regarding the incident. But in a statement reported by Channel 12, police said they were investigating and searching for the suspects.