Shocking moment retired California pastor scrawls a SWASTIKA on his Jewish neighbor’s groceries

A retired California pastor has been caught on camera drawing a Swastika on his Jewish neighbor’s groceries.

Leah Grossman confronted her neighbor, Mark Nakagawa, at 10.15pm on December 5, seconds after her doorbell camera caught him scrawling on a box of seltzer. 

The single mother of two told CBS she was ‘shattered’ when she saw it was a Swastika, and asked him ‘Is that a Nazi symbol?’

Nakagawa initially denied drawing the Swastika, but when confronted with the video evidence, claimed he was trying to teach her about the history of the symbol. 

Grossman said it wasn’t her first run-in with Nakagawa and claimed he had previously called her a fascist in a homeowners’ meeting for hanging an Israeli flag from her balcony after the October 7 attacks. 

He initially denied drawing the symbol but later said he did it to teach her about its history as a Buddhist sign of peace

Speaking to CBS about the drawing, she said: ‘I just fell to pieces. Like I’ve never shook like that before. My toes were shaking. 

‘I get emotional thinking about it because it reminds me of all the people I know, my family, my children.’ 

The incident was caught on her doorbell camera. 

Nakagawa can be seen pausing by bags of her shopping outside her door before bending down to draw something in black pen on a box of seltzer. 

Grossman then comes out of her front door and calls out to him, asking him ‘Is there a problem?’

He replies: ‘What?’ and she asks again ‘Is there a problem?’ to which he said ‘No.’ 

She then directly asked him: ‘Is that a Nazi symbol?’ 

He said ‘No’ and then claimed that he was ‘just walking by here’ and didn’t know what the drawing was. 

When Grossman said she saw him and told him about the camera, he still claimed he didn’t know what the drawing was. 

Grossman is a single mother of two young boys and said she was intimidated by what she saw as an act of anti-Semitism. 

She told CBS: ‘What’s going on in the world has really opened up a crevasse of anti-Semitism and I think people feel really emboldened to push Jewish people around. People just shouldn’t get away with this.’

Grossman said she was ‘shattered’ by the incident which she saw as an act of anti-Semitism

Nakagawa retired from his role as a pastor at the United Methodist Church last year

Grossman claims Nakagawa had previously called her a fascist at a homeowners’ meeting for hanging an Israeli flag from her balcony in the wake of the October 7 attacks

She also said that Nakagawa had previously called her a ‘fascist’ for hanging an Israeli flag from her balcony. 

When Nakagawa was confronted by KCAL news about the incident, he repeatedly insisted he didn’t know how Grossman would react to the symbol and then claimed he was trying to teach her about its history as a sign of peace. 

The Swastika is known as the Nazi symbol of hate, but it is also a millennia-old symbol of wellbeing in Hinduism and for Buddha’s footsteps in Buddhism. 

Nakagawa said: The way I went about it, in hindsight, the way I went about it was not the right away to go about it. It was bad judgment on my part. I realize that.’ 

He also claimed that Grossman had called him a fascist at the homeowners’ meeting. 

Nakagawa retired from his job as a pastor and senior leader at the United Methodist Church in California last year. 

Grossman said that he had apologized to her, but she did not accept it, she told KTLA: ‘I know in my heart of hearts that it’s completely self-serving, has nothing to do with any kind of contrition as far as what was done to me, what was done to my children.’