When sophomore Tara Hain came back from her morning run on Oct. 5, she saw that the Israeli flag on her house, located on 16th street in the District of Columbia, was covered with red spray, the sidewalk to her house was spray painted with the phrase “Free Palestine” and her front steps spray painted “Free Gaza.” For the Hain family, this was not the first case of vandalism at their home.
“Our flag has been ripped down four times, we’ve gone through four different flags,” Tara said. “It has either been ripped, cut or just thrown on the floor. And this flag was our longest-standing flag … I think it stood up for two months.”
The family put up the flag as a way to display their support for Israel and their Jewish pride after the events of Oct. 7.
“We have family who lives in Israel, including one of Tara’s cousins who is currently serving in the IDF,” Tara’s mother Ariele Mortkowitz said. “So, on October 8th of last year, while everything was so awful, we happened to have an Israeli flag lying around our house, and on a whim, we just put it out on our lawn as a show of solidarity with our family and Israel.”
However, the first flag they put up didn’t last very long. The first few times the flag was only taken down, however the involvement of graffiti in the most recent attack made it feel more personal, according to Azi.
Despite the violation to their property, the family showed compassion in trying to understand that others might not share their same views of the events of Oct. 7 or their support for Israel.
“I felt pretty upset, but I also understood other people’s perspectives, like for all we know, they could have a relative in Gaza,” Tara’s brother, Azi Hain said. “[However] I don’t think they should be misusing our property like that.”
Though the police had been called to the house, no arrests were made and the Hain family never learned who had been dismantling or destroying their flag.
According to Mortkowitz, while this experience demonstrated hatred, it also brought to light unexpected kindness. The Hain family found neighbors and strangers to be particularly supportive following the incident.
“After a very hard [day] yesterday, a random person we didn’t know sent us a replacement Israeli flag [in the mail],” Mortkowitz said. “Then, someone knocked on the door with an enormous bouquet of flowers and said that she was sorry to see that this happened and that it has no place in our community, and that she wanted us to know that neighbors stand with us and for us and that the community has our back.”
