![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/weitzman.avif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAn Israeli flag hangs on the facade of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. (Google Streetview)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The flag, which hangs on an exterior wall of the Jewish museum with the words \u201cThe Weitzman stands with Israel,\u201d was vandalized with red spray paint early Monday morning. It has already been cleaned following a similar incident on Aug. 18.<\/p>\n
After the second incident, the museum announced that it was \u201cexpediting\u201d plans to swap the flag for a \u201chostage-focused sign\u201d that had been planned to go up closer to the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The move swiftly drew criticism, especially after The Forward ran a story with the headline \u201cPhiladelphia Jewish museum won\u2019t rehang Israeli flag now after it was vandalized twice in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the comments of an Instagram post by the Weitzman museum announcing the signage swap, one user wrote, \u201cThey will see removing the Israeli flag as a victory, even for a message about the hostages.\u201d Another commenter wrote, \u201cRemoving the Israeli flag will not save the museum from more attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the museum reversed course, saying its planned change had been mischaracterized.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we certainly did not intend with this plan was to create a perception that we were capitulating to vandals or had somehow walked back our position of unequivocal support for Israel and its people,\u201d the museum\u2019s president and CEO, Dan Tadmor, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet that\u2019s how it was perceived by some. And perception \u2014 as we all know, especially in today\u2019s day and age \u2014 is reality,\u201d Tadmor continued. \u201cAnd perception does matter. As the nation\u2019s Jewish museum, there can never be any misunderstanding as to our identity and positions: we are a proudly Jewish and proudly Zionist institution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both the hostage sign and the Israeli flag will be installed some time over the next week, according to Tadmor.<\/p>\n
In June, the federal government arrested a Maryland man accused of sending threatening letters to the Weitzman that referenced the museum\u2019s \u201cmany big open windows,\u201d \u201cKristallnacht,\u201d \u201canger and rage\u201d and a future need to \u201crebuild\u201d the institution following its destruction.<\/p>\n
The incidents come amid a string of vandalism at Jewish museums across the country. Last month, several swastikas were painted on the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, and in June at a Jewish art museum in Manhattan, a man wrote the word \u201cGaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last summer, a sculpture outside of the Brooklyn Museum in New York was tagged with a host of pro-Palestinian phrases including \u201cUr museum kills kids in Palestine!\u201d and \u201cF\u2013-k Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israeli flags have also drawn vandalism. This week, when the school board in Beverly Hills, California, voted to install Israeli flags in the district\u2019s schools, one board member warned that the move could turn the schools into targets.<\/p>\n