Jewish coed victimized by 'prank' swastika

[Ian David]

3/5/2008 8:59:00 PM Email this article • Print this article
by Richard Greenberg
Associate Editor

A swastika as a joke? Shira Zemel doesn't buy it. "It's absurd," said the 21-year-old junior at Goucher College in Towson, whose off-campus student housing apartment recently was defaced with a swastika etched by another Jewish student who claimed in his published confession that "it was intended as a prank on a friend."

"Something like this is never a joke," Zemel, whose father, Daniel, is the rabbi of the Reform Temple Micah in the District, said in an interview Monday.

The swastika ‹ one of four that were discovered in Zemel's building Feb. 23 and Feb. 24 following a get-together at her apartment ‹ was carved on a bathroom wall by Goucher junior Julian Rees, who said in his confession that he is descended from Holocaust survivors and meant no harm "to any one person or group of people, much less the residents of the apartment." The confession appeared a week ago Tuesday in the campus newspaper, The Quindecim.

Rees, who termed the incident "the biggest mistake of my life to date" in his statement, has maintained that he is not responsible for the other three hate symbols that were found just outside the door to Zemel's apartment and in a nearby hallway, according to Goucher spokesperson Kate Pipkin. As of Tuesday afternoon, no one had claimed responsibility for the remaining three swastikas, Pipkin said, adding that the incident is an anomaly at Goucher. The markings, she said, were all removed by the apartment building's management company within 24 hours of their discovery.

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