SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — The tattered Pride flag that hangs off the front porch of Rabbi Shoshanah Tornberg’s home has been displayed as a colorful expression of who she, her husband and their daughter are.
The vandals who tore it down over the weekend, tore it up, blew it up, desecrated it and left it like garbage across the street also revealed something — the darkness of their souls.
“I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday,” Tornberg, rabbi of Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown, said during a telephone conversation on Tuesday afternoon. “It’s a hate crime.
“And what they did to the flag has an added measure of hostility and danger associated with it.”
She said her household is made up of queer folks and queer allies.
It is not clear if that reality — or simply because a Pride flag was displayed off their front porch — is what sparked the vandalism.
Tornberg said the flag was likely stolen Saturday around 10 p.m., but wasn’t discovered missing until Sunday morning.
“I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. It’s a hate crime."Rabbi Shoshanah Tornberg of Allentown
South Whitehall Township police were called. But with no video available that may have recorded the vandals, not much could be done.
Tornberg’s daughter reported hearing fireworks on Monday night; the supposition is that is when the flag was vandalized.
While walking the family dog on Tuesday morning, Tornberg discovered the flag on a basketball court in the park across the street from her home. It had been torn up, with the word “gay” and “x” spray painted on it. The flag was covered with broken glass and appeared to have been blown up with fireworks, she said.
“Saturday night was the night before (Lehigh Valley) Pride Night, so maybe that had something to do with it,” the rabbi said.
“A neighbor said she had heard four kids on bikes and wearing ski masks running up the street perpendicular to our street that night. I think it was a bunch of kids with nothing to do, not some white supremacists or Christian nationalists. Probably just some kids who are learning hate from somewhere.”
What happened to the flag at Tornberg’s home is becoming epidemic throughout America. Pride flags are being burned, stolen, slashed and torn down from homes at an alarming rate, according to at least one organization.
“What’s upsetting is that this is the social context in which we live. So that makes this less surprising than I wish it were. This is just a symptom of the really splintered society we live in.”Rabbi Shoshanah Tornberg of Allentown
A recent survey by Them, an American online LGBT magazine, found anti-LGBTQ+ threats and vandalism in at least 10 states since June.
That includes bomb threats made in at least three states and more than a dozen separate reports of vandalized Pride flags or banners since June 1.
“What’s upsetting is that this is the social context in which we live,” Tornberg said. “So that makes this less surprising than I wish it were. This is just a symptom of the really splintered society we live in.”
Where is Rabbi Tornberg’s flag now?
Proudly hanging off the front of her home.
Where she said it belongs.
