Woman Confesses to Two-Borough Swastika Blitz

A woman jealous of her ex-husband scrawled swastikas on 20 different sites in Brooklyn and Queens, including synagogues, Jewish schools, Sephardic community centers, private homes, and even police cars, according to the police.Police said Olga Abramovich, 49, of Bay Ridge, confessed to spraying the swastikas. She was charged yesterday with criminal mischief and related charges.Ms. Abramovich painted swastikas on Jewish synagogues and community centers at Sheepshead Bay and Manhattan Beach over a three-day period ending yesterday morning. She also targeted her ex-husband’s car in front of his Ozone Park home and painted swastikas on two police cruisers at Coney Island.Ms. Abramovich, who is Russian Orthodox, resented her Jewish ex-husband, Lev Abramovich, 49, for marrying a 35-year-old woman, police said. According to a police source, Ms. Abramovich suffers from bipolar disorder and wrote insults that directly targeted her ex-husband. “Some of them made references to the necessity of Viagra,” said the police source.Mr. Abramovich could not be reached for comment.Most of the targeted areas are Jewish communities in Brooklyn, a borough that has seen a recent increase in anti-Semitic bias crimes. Prior to Ms. Abramovich’s arrest, many of the victims expressed fear, anger, and disgust at the sight of swastikas on synagogue doors.Alvert Levy, 58, a member of Ahi Ezer Congregation on Ocean Parkway at Sheepshead Bay, described the white swastikas painted on the wooden doors of his synagogue as a “smack in the face.”“It’s something that’s been going on since the beginning of time and we thought it was over,” said Mr. Levy, his voice shaking with emotion. “It hurts. Terrible, terrible hurt. This is not a prank. This is not graffiti. When you put a swastika, you’re putting a message of hate. Anti-Semitism.”Mothers picking up their children at the nearby Sephardic Community Center’s day care said they were concerned about the swastika scrawled on their building, but said they were confident that security would prevent anything more serious and decried the symbols as ultimately futile.Rep. Anthony Weiner comforted Mr. Levy as workers prepared to remove the swastikas from the Ahi Ezer Congregation. He referred to the bias vandalism as “deeply troubling.” Earlier this year, Mr. Weiner released a study showing a recent spike in anti-Semitism. In March of this year, the New York Region of the Anti-Defamation League reported a citywide spike in anti-Semitic incidents during 2003. The annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents showed the greatest increase occurred in Brooklyn, with 81 incidents, more than double the previous year’s tally of 36.Police received a report of a swastika at 1:45 a.m. yesterday, when graffiti was discovered at a Kings Highway medical center. Police then canvassed the neighborhood and the more they looked, the more swastikas they found. Members of the Hate Crimes Unit examined reports from the previous two days and realized they weren’t looking at isolated pranksters.Speaking Arabic through a translator, Zuki Alfaks, 55, superintendent of the Kol Eliyan synagogue at Avenue T, said police were already on the scene when he arrived for work at 5 a.m. Several swastikas were spray-painted on the glass doors, but they were quickly removed.Members of the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center at West End Avenue, which includes the Jasa Senior Senior, a synagogue, day camp office, and a yeshiva, were shocked that someone had the audacity to scrawl a swastika on the front of their building.“What can do you with all these enemies around?” asked Sara Furman, 81. a Holocaust survivor from Ukraine who spoke through a translator. “Only enemies would do something like this.”

Woman Confesses to Two-Borough Swastika Blitz

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