Eleven Mezuzahs in Brooklyn Burned on Holocaust Remembrance Day
By Anne Cohen April 9, 2013
Eleven mezuzahs and doorframes were set on fire in Brooklyn on Monday, in what New York police is treating as a hate crime.
The vandalism took place at the Taylor White Public Houses, in the predominantly haredi section of South Williamsburg. Mezuzahs were scorched from the third floor all the way up to the 12th, WABC reported.
“This was a brazen act of religious desecration, and it is something that is shocking to everyone in this community,” City Councilman Stephen Levin told WABC.
The act was particularly disturbing in that it took place on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Nothing but hatred can explain why someone would burn mezuzahs on Yom Hashoah, the day we remember the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.
“This is a sickening act of prejudice that strikes at the very core of who we are as a city,” de Blasio added in a statement. “Make no mistake: We will find those responsible.”
The Hate Crimes Task force is searching for those responsible, said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne., adding that because of the artifacts burned were religious symbols, the police was treating the crime as an act of anti-Semitism.
The mezuzahs, a symbol of protection, did their job: no one in the targeted apartments was physically hurt.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
