‘Just 75 years since the gas chambers:’ New billboards in Las Vegas call out anti-Semitism

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - A series of new billboards in Las Vegas and across the country are raising eyebrows, but that is exactly what they are designed to do.

One says: “We’re just 75 years since the gas chambers… so no, a billboard calling out Jew hate isn’t an overreaction.”

There are four billboards in Las Vegas to bring awareness to anti-Semitism.

Two are off the I-15 (one at Charleston, another at Wigwam) and two more are off Las Vegas Blvd. by the Mob Museum.

Nonprofit organization JewBelong is installing the billboards in six major American cities including Las Vegas where they hope the message will be seen by locals and visitors from around the world.

“Antisemitism is growing in America at ridiculously high rates and a lot of people are not aware about that,” contended Archie Gottesman, Co-Founder of JewBelong.

The billboards come at time of concern for religious intolerance in the US, with anti-Jewish incidents rising including high-profile incidents like Kanye West’s outbursts on Twitter and the media firestorm over the Brooklyn Nets’ suspension of player Kyrie Irving.

As the billboards went up, Nevada Senator Jackie Rosen raised concerns in Washington about anti-Semitism in America while questioning the FBI Director and Secretary of Homeland Security during a hearing of the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Both said they would support a unified national strategy to target the issue.

“There’re of course, the target of domestic violent extremists. And as you may remember, we’ve disrupted an attempt to blow up a synagogue in the Las Vegas area just a couple years ago, for example. So, we’re trying to tackle it both through the domestic terrorism lens, through our joint terrorism task force, and through the hate crime lens through our civil rights program,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The FBI Director added 63% of all religiously motivated violence in the country is driven by anti-Semitism, even though just 2.4% percent of the population is Jewish.

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