New Year Brings New Swastika Incidents
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
A disturbing upward trend in hate crime complaints continued into the New Year this week with swastikas appearing in Jewish areas of Brooklyn in two separate incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In an incident yesterday, police said a large swastika along with an anti-Semitic phrase was found painted on the door of the Brookdale Senior Center in Midwood.
The center, at 817 Avenue H, doubles as a synagogue, and the swastika was found at around 10 a.m. yesterday by the rabbi there, according to Assemblyman Dov Hikind.
Two other swastikas were found the day before in Borough Park, the assemblyman said.
Mr. Hikind, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor who lives in the neighborhood, said residents were shocked at the possible bias crimes, which ticked upward last year from the previous year by as much as 20%.
“We’re starting a new year and day one you have swastikas, and day two you have swastikas,” he said. “It’s very disconcerting.”
