NARBERTH, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Jewish business owners in Montgomery County are outraged after their restaurant was vandalized this week.
“This just provoked me, like sadness and anger, and it doesn’t bring any peace, which is what we need,” said Gladys Fink Senderowitsch, owner of Nana’s Kitchen and Catering in Narberth.
She and her daughter Lee were devastated to find someone spray-painted “Free Gaza” on the side of their building.
“I’m angry. I’m not by myself. It’s not just against my own family, home, myself, it’s against my whole community,” she said.
“We’ve never experienced something like this in the past,” added Lee. “Having somebody come and do something negative on your property, targeting you specifically for your identity and doing something destructive like this made us feel violated, made us feel threatened.”
The graffiti was in an alleyway the restaurant shares with an Israeli-owned phone repair store. A worker at a nearby movie theater noticed it, but waited a week to inform Senderowitsch.
Police say Narberth Borough Public Works helped clean the spray paint off the building on Friday. Authorities are collaborating with the Anti-Defamation League to investigate the incident.
The war in Gaza has become a dire humanitarian crisis, with more than 31,000 Palestinians reported dead and 1.4 million displaced from their homes. Israeli leaders say Hamas continues to hold about 100 of its people hostage. Gladys says two of those people are her friends.
“Their names are Yair and Eitan Horn,” she said, “and I really want to see them alive and healthy.”