Police Commissioner, Israelis Decry Anti-Semitic Attacks

A day after a third Brooklyn synagogue was painted with swastikas in less than a week, the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, appeared with Israel's foreign minister and ambassador in Brooklyn Heights yesterday to condemn the attacks.

Mr. Kelly said police have flooded the neighborhood searching for the individual who left 23 anti-Semitic markings inside a six-block radius on Monday, including swastikas spray-painted on the steps of two synagogues. Early Saturday, a third synagogue was painted with swastikas and derogatory statements in Bensonhurst, but police said they believe the incidents are unrelated. "When anti-Semitism raises its ugly head, it needs to get an answer," Israel's minister of foreign affairs, Tzipi Livni, said at the news conference in front of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, one of those struck last week. "This is the right message to those who are trying to exploit our tolerance," she added of the large police presence at the event, which also included Jewish leaders and Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman.

Mr. Kelly said detectives so far have no leads despite studying surveillance videos and searching the sewers and trash for evidence.

The attacks occurred as the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot was beginning. At the nearly century-old Sons of Israel synagogue in Bensonhurst — according to its rabbi one of the oldest in the city — congregants were arriving for Saturday morning services this when the latest anti-Semitic vandalism was discovered.

Rabbi Baruch Krupnik said an elderly Holocaust survivor was the first to find the three swastikas scrawled on the façade of the temple.

"He's really shaken," Rabbi Krupnik said, adding: "We can't tell you that it's unexpected after the Brooklyn Heights incident." In fact, he said, the leaders of the congregation had met earlier in the week to discuss how to prevent vandalism following the earlier incidents. "It was disconcerting," he said. "I tried to do my best to comfort people so their holiday wasn't ruined."

A few doors down from the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue, the rabbi of Congregation B'Nai Avraham, the other synagogue struck Monday, said the visit by the police commissioner and Israeli officials was helpful.

"It makes our community feel that we're not alone," Rabbi Aaron Raskin said.

Mr. Kelly urged anyone with information about any of the attacks to call the Police Department, and praised a coalition of Jewish groups that have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the individuals responsible for the attacks.