The Nazi graffiti on Tel Aviv’s Chelouche Synagogue. Photo: Israel Police.

JNS.org – Israeli police launched an investigation after a Tel Aviv synagogue’s wall was spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti on Tuesday.

The Chelouche Synagogue, which is part of a historic landmark in Tel Aviv’s Neve Tzedek neighborhood, has served as a prayer facility since the time of the early Zionists who settled the area. It is named after Gavriel Chelouche, an engineer and member of a prominent Jewish family in pre-state Israel. Chelouche was killed by Arab terrorists in 1938.

The graffiti included the word “heilike,” an apparent combination of Facebook’s “like” feature and the German word “heil,” and the sentence “Frankly, Hitler was a Jew” in Hebrew. Hitler’s face was also drawn, as was a swastika inside a Star of David.