(JTA) — A crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $12,000 to help the owner of a Texas food truck that serves kosher-style food after it was vandalized in an anti-Semitic attack.
Scotty Grossbard opened his Jew Hungry? food truck in Austin eight months ago serving traditional Jewish foods such as matzah ball soup, latkes and deli sandwiches.
On Oct. 31, he received a phone call while on vacation in Florida to tell him that his truck had been vandalized.
In addition to a broken windshield and window, appliances were destroyed and kosher food ingredients were stolen. Grossbard also discovered an Iron Cross formed out of coins on the driver’s seat of the truck. He told the local media that when he saw the cross he knew it was an anti-Semitic attack.
The Iron Cross was a German military medal adopted by the Nazi regime in the 1930s that is used today by white supremacists as a hate symbol.
“It was ransacked, glass everywhere. And that’s when I saw the cross and the change on my driver seat,” Grossbard said after he returned from vacation to survey the damage. “I got upset. I started crying. I cried most of the day yesterday.
“For them to leave that, to me it’s just saying that Jewish people are all about money and that’s all we think about.”
Grossbard opened a GoFundMe page on Saturday night to raise the estimated $2,000 needed for immediate repairs that would allow him to reopen. That estimate has increased as more equipment was discovered to be damaged, including his fryer. The goal was surpassed in one day by 74 donors and the total stood on Thursday morning at more than $12,000.
He announced on the page that he will reopen with sandwiches and soups while waiting for the equipment repairs.
There have been at least 32 reported anti-Semitic or white supremacist incidents in Austin since January 2017, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
