If it seems as though in recent years the atmosphere has become more charged with hate and division — perhaps even to the point of being dangerous — you’re not imagining things. Hate crimes are on the rise.

To examine one category, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports anti-Jewish hate crimes increased by 63% between 2023 and 2024. It seems as though the trend is not letting up.

Earlier this month, an Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar in Miamisburg, Ohio, had to shut down for part of a weekend after it was tagged with anti-semitic graffiti, according to a report by WLWT.

Some of the language used is vulgar. All of it is horrifying. Use of the phrase “Jews work here,” accompanied by a swastika should send chills down the spine of anyone who has a passing knowledge of the kind of graffiti used on businesses in the years leading up to World War II.

Cathy Gardner, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, told the Dayton Jewish Observer the timing of the incident lined up with a planned Jewish Holocaust memorial day.

“To see it here, the day before our Yom Hashoah remembrance, is devastating,” she said. “It exhibits the Jew hatred that we know exists, and that was at the root of the horrors of the Holocaust.”

Miamisburg is near Dayton, where in 2023 a school board member gave a Nazi salute and said “sieg heil” during a public meeting. Neo-Nazi groups are making appearances in towns such as Evendale, Ohio.

Perhaps these incidents are noteworthy because they are so few and far between. But they must not be ignored, as foul people believe they have found an opportunity for such displays in this era.

Each of us must do our best to counteract it — to make clear such ideology and action are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Those who would divide us and encourage such evil must be made to understand they will not win.

Ohio — we say we are “the heart of it all” — must be the heart of a movement to heal, to move past hate, and for all of us to move forward together.