Anti-Semitic images were spray painted out front of a synagogue in Philadelphia’s Rhawnhurst section over the weekend.

The graffiti was found at the Congregation of Ner Zedek on the 700 block of Bustleton Avenue.

And it’s not the first time.

Police hope surveillance cameras lead them right to the vandals.

It could be the work of mindless young people, unaware of what the symbols represent, or it could be a hate crime, according to police.

Either way, the act has once again shaken a religious community to its core.

Sometime overnight, a vandal or vandals spray-painted a pair of swastikas on the brick housing of the old sign that sits out front of the synagogue that is home to Congregations of Ner Zedek.

Neighbors, especially those old enough to understand the swastika as a powerful symbol of hatred and violence, were horrified.

This is not the synagogue’s first brush with vandalism.

A rock was thrown though a front glass door just six weeks ago.

And other swastikas were painted in front and out back, several years ago.

“As we know, unfortunately, in the world we live in, although we all want to try and get along with each other, it doesn’t always happen that way,” said Rabbi Reuben Israel Abraham.

Rabbi Abraham says the synagogue updated its surveillance system just a week ago. Staffers spent Monday pouring over the recordings, hoping to catch the vandals in the act.

City clean-up crews arrived quickly, swabbing the graffiti with chemicals, then washing away the symbols.

Sadly, the equipment cannot so easily scrub the community of intolerance.

A fact that shakes this community of faith- filled, as it is, with so many elderly congregants.

“I have a number of Holocaust survivors here in my congregation, and if they see something like this. Of course it brings back all sorts of terrible memories of what they went through,” said Rabbi Abraham.

Church staffers are continuing to scour that surveillance video for clues.

We do know a sparsely attended KKK rally took place Saturday on the 6700 block of Torresdale Avenue.

However, police call it a coincidence; they do not believe it was connected to this vandalism.

(Source: MyFoxPhilly)