Second Swastika Found In Two Weeks At New Jersey High School

A swastika Image by Wikimedia Commons

By Aiden Pink June 10, 2019

Two swastikas were found in the span of two weeks at a New Jersey high school, the North Jersey Record reported on Thursday.

One was found on Thursday etched into a classroom wall at Glen Rock High School in Bergen County, and the other was discovered on May 28 on the wall of a bathroom shared between the high school and middle school.

The bathroom swastika was around the size of a half-dollar coin, according to the Record.

“The Glen Rock Public School denounces the use of this symbol, no matter the size, as it symbolizes genocide, intolerance and hate,” interim superintendent Bruce Watson said in an email to parents.

In a joint statement, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey said they were “deeply concerned” by the incidents.

Local police are conducting an investigation, but don’t have much evidence to go on, law enforcement told the Record.

Areas in Bergen County, in the north of the state on the New York border, have seen communal tensions as the Orthodox Jewish population has grown. A police officer in a Bergen County borough was disciplined earlier this year for dressing up as an Orthodox Jew at a party at the local firehouse.

Schools across the country have seen numerous reports of students vandalism property with swastikas or sharing Nazi- and Holocaust-related imagery and memes on social media.

Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com

Aiden Pink is the Deputy News Editor for the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

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