Swastika on Kosher Pizzeria in Skokie Likely a Gang Symbol

By Hamodia Staff

A swastika drawn on a kosher pizza shop in Skokie, Ill., drew much public attention over the weekend, but police believe it is actually gang-related and not an antisemitic incident.

In an incident captured on surveillance footage, a man walked up to the back window of EJ’s Pizzeria Thursday evening and began scratching with a razor blade, and then wrote with a graffiti marker several symbols including a swastika.

The vandalism was not discovered until Sunday morning, as the store had closed early Thursday to allow workers to be home early for Thanksgiving, and on the short Friday nobody had gone to the back room where the vandalized window is.

Since this is a kosher establishment, and antisemitic incidents are rising nationwide during the Hamas-Israel war, it was widely assumed that this was the latest such incident.

However, the store manager tells Hamodia that police told him they believe this was a gang member drawing his gang’s logo. The gang, called the maniac Latin Disciples, is a Chicago-based Hispanic street gang, according to Wikipedia. It was founded by Albert “Hitler” Hernandez and other Puerto Rican teenagers in Chicago in the mid-1960’s.

Its symbols include several images, one of which is a swastika.