Last week, Scotty Grossbard was in Florida, enjoying what he says was his first vacation in ages. He went to the beach. He took an airboat tour and saw an alligator. And then his phone rang, and everything went to shit.
The manager of the 04 Lounge in Austin, Texas, called Grossbard to let him know that his food truck, Jew Hungry?, had been vandalized. When he returned to Texas, he immediately saw that his eight-month old business was in ruins: The windows had been shattered, the truck’s grill had been damaged, and some of his kosher meats and cheeses had been stolen.
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That’s all terrible, but the most chilling part was what he found on the driver’s seat, surrounded by pieces of broken glass. According to the Austin American-Statesman, a metal cross had been placed there, along with a handful of coins. “It was ransacked, glass everywhere,” he said. “And that’s when I saw the cross and the change on my driver seat. I got upset. I started crying. I cried most of the day yesterday.”
The Anti-Defamation League defines the Iron Cross as a hate symbol. “The Iron Cross is a famous German military medal dating back to the 19th century,” the organization writes in its Hate Symbol Database. “After World War II, the medal was discontinued but neo-Nazis and other white supremacists subsequently adopted it as a hate symbol and it has been a commonly-used hate symbol ever since.” (But the ADL does point out that the cross—minus the swastikas—has also been used by brands, bikers, and other totally non-hateful individuals).
But the fact that the cross was surrounded by coins makes Grossbard believes that the vandals had a pointed, anti-Semitic message for him. “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,” he told the Statesman.
Before his truck was ransacked, Jew Hungry? was open five days a week, serving what Grossbard called “kosher-ish” foods including sandwiches, latkes, bagels, and soups. Due to the damage to the truck, he is now operating on more limited hours, and can’t offer his full menu until his fryer is repaired. He has launched a GoFundMe to help cover the cost of some of the repairs that the truck will need.
“As I continue to put things back together it has come to my attention that more has been taken and/or broken then I thought,” he wrote. “This has forced me to temporarily remove a few favorite items from the menu, not to mention, I have no idea when the window can get replaced […] At the moment I’ve tallied up the cost of getting the most important things fixed and replaced to be around $2000.00. I plan on opening daily to recoup this loss but anything donated will help IMMENSELY.”
Hopefully, Grossbard gets his truck and his grill back in working order. And one can only hope that he eventually gets a do-over on that vacation.
