A couple of swastika images were found on a golf course in Melbourne, Australia, on the evening of May 19.
The swastikas reportedly were drawn in what appeared to be black spray paint on the fourth green of the Cranbourne Golf Club. Jewish golfers who were barred from joining other golf clubs had founded the Cranbourne Golf Club in 1953; today around half of its membership is Jewish.
This was done to Cranbourne Golf Club yesterday. The base club for Jewish golfers in Melbourne. Abhorrent. pic.twitter.com/CEgkltwa7q
— Daniel Garb (@DanielGarb) May 21, 2020
Graffiti depicting male genitalia and the words “golf fags” also were spray-painted on the course.
“Everyone’s obviously disgusted by it and disappointed that people can be like that,” Cameron Mott, the club’s general manager, told The Age.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said in a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corp., “Another day, another sickening and chilling incident of swastika vandalism, and if this hate spree continues, Melbourne will soon be known as the swastika capital of Australia. We call on the State Government to convene a roundtable of leaders from across the spectrum to come together and agree on effective measures to fight against this toxic bigotry that is threatening our way of life.”
In November, an Executive Council of Australian Jewry report found that serious anti-Semitic incidents increased from 30% from 2018 to 2019.
