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(JTA) – A faculty district in Virginia has apologized for designing and distributing a emblem that resembles a swastika, within the second case this month of a district releasing a emblem that bears a resemblance to a Nazi emblem.
Hanover County Public Faculties, simply north of Richmond, this week unveiled T-shirts and convention supplies with a emblem of what the superintendent mentioned was “4 arms and arms greedy collectively.” However native Jewish teams and others, together with a Jewish candidate for Virginia’s Home of Delegates, as an alternative noticed one thing that appeared an excessive amount of just like the swastika.
“We’re deeply sorry for this error and for the feelings that the emblem has evoked by its semblance to a swastika and, by extension, to the atrocities that have been dedicated below its banner,” Michael Gill, the district’s superintendent, mentioned in a press release Wednesday, by which he blamed the emblem’s creation on “one among our lecturers” who mentioned it had been completed “with none ill-intent.”
“Unquestionably, we condemn something related to the Nazi regime within the strongest method potential,” Gill wrote.
Gill’s apology got here after objections to the emblem have been raised by the Jewish Neighborhood Federation of Richmond, the Anti-Defamation League, the Virginia Holocaust Museum, the interfaith nonprofit Virginia Middle for Inclusive Communities and different civil rights teams, together with the native NAACP chapter.
“We respect the swift and definitive response of Superintendent Michael Gill,” the federation’s CEO, Daniel Staffenberg, mentioned in a press release. Staffenberg added that the teams deliberate to fulfill with Gill to “make sure that the voice of Jewish college students and people of different minority faiths are heard and revered.”
The incident got here lower than a month after a college district close to Atlanta apologized for designing a brand new elementary faculty emblem that resembled the Nazi Eagle. That college, East Aspect Elementary in Marietta, Georgia, is positioned throughout the road from a synagogue.
Rachel Levy, a former Jewish preschool instructor working for the Virginia Home of Delegates in a district that features a part of Hanover County, harshly criticized the school district on Twitter for the emblem, and mentioned Gill’s apology was “unacceptable.”
“That is what occurs while you refuse to acknowledge that cultural competence & sensitivity are a factor. And that your management lacks it,” wrote Levy, a Democrat. “Sadly, stuff like this occurs means too ceaselessly with HCPS.”
Levy pointed to a different latest incident within the district by which a college board member tried to prosthelytize a Jewish instructor, saying that “your everlasting future depends upon” changing to Christianity, and disparaged the top of the native NAACP as “an indignant African-American girl.”
The swastika was initially a logo of peace utilized by Hindu, Buddhist and Jain communities, however after being adopted by the Nazi regime, it’s popularly understood to have morphed into a logo of hate. A Hindu motion in California is in search of to develop understanding of non-hateful makes use of of the image.
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