Leah Grossman of West Hollywood caught a church pastor drawing something on her groceries in December. It was all caught on camera. Around 10:15 PM on December 5, Grossman, a single Jewish mother to two boys, witnessed Mark Nakagawa drawing a swastika on a case of soda. In the age of Ring, you should assume every house has a camera. Obviously, he didn’t and got busted for it. His explanation alone should warrant a jail sentence for abject stupidity. Nakagawa said he was trying to educate Grossman on the symbol as it’s pervasively used in Buddhism (via CBS News):
L.A. - disturbing video footage captures Mark Nakagawa, President of the United Methodist Church, taking a marker and drawing a swastika on a Jewish woman's package of soda. pic.twitter.com/pMnmauW6z1
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 4, 2024
Leah Grossman: "Is there a problem?"
Mark Nakagawa: "What?"
Leah Grossman: "Is there a problem?"
Mark Nakagawa: "No."
Leah Grossman: "Is that a Nazi symbol?"
Mark Nakagawa: "No."
Leah Grossman: "What is that?"
Mark Nakagawa: "I'm just walking by here. I don't know."
Leah Grossman: "I saw you."
Leah Grossman: "I have a camera. Like, what is that? What did you draw there?"
Mark Nakagawa: "I don't know."
[…]
She says it happened not long after she says Nakagawa called her a fascist in a homeowner's association meeting for hanging the flag of Israel from her balcony after the attacks in Israel.
"What's going on in the world has really opened up a crevasse of anti-Semitism and I think people feel really emboldened to push Jewish people around. People just shouldn't get away with this," Grossman said.
When KCAL asked Nakagawa about the incident, he said Grossman called him a fascist, but didn't deny writing the symbol.
Instead, Nakagawa said he was trying to educate Grossman about the history of it as a Buddhist symbol of love. He repeatedly insisted he did not know how Grossman would react toward the drawing.
"The way I went about it, in hindsight, the way I went about it was not the right away to go about it. It was bad judgment on my part. I realize that," said Nakagawa.
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Is this man mentally defective? Everyone knows the Nazis ruined the swastika’s original meaning forever as soon as Adolf Hitler adopted it for his national socialist party by placing it on a 45-degree tilt. The way he went about it deserves a frying pan to the back of his head. He called Grossman a fascist for flying an Israeli flag, then draws swastikas all over her food. I doubt Buddhism was going through his mind—antisemitism, most definitely.
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