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Beth Dershowitz, her husband Michael and their children decided to drive from their home in Sacramento to Oregon this week because they wanted to see something unusual—Monday's solar eclipse.
Instead, on their drive up I-5, the Dershowitzes, who are Jewish, saw something they were not expecting.
"We witnessed two seemingly coordinated displays of hate on overpasses yesterday heading north," Beth Dershowitz tells WW via email.
The first was somewhere south of Eugene. It said "UNJEW HUMANITY." We were shaken but continued out of the rural area. Then I saw another near Salem, and my husband pulled to the shoulder to get a picture."
Dershowitz says the banners had a chilling effect on what she hoped was going to a joyful family road-trip.
"I cannot believe that we still have to face this vicious anti-semitism in such a public place in 2017," she says.
"My husband wanted to confront the men behind this, but I was afraid for our children in the car with us. Just another day in Trump's America."
Angela Beers Seydel, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Transportation says her agency also got a call yesterday about a sign near the intersection of Highway 34 and I-5 (south of Albany) and is in the process of removing them and making sure no other signs go up on overpasses.
"Regardless of content, ODOT does not allow signs or people calling attention to themselves on overpasses," Beers Seydel said in an email. "The distraction is dangerous to drivers and we do see crashes occur when these situations happen."
Updated Aug. 21: The Oregonian reports that based on his social media posts, the likely culprit for the signs is Jimmy Marr, a Springfield man with a history of anti-semitism. Marr did not respond to a request for comment from WW or the O.