Vandals Deface Jewish Brooklyn Neighborhood With Swastikas Twice in Two Days
Vandals defaced a largely Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood with anti-Semitic graffiti, one of two such sprees in the borough in the space of two days.
The New York Police Department is looking for the suspects who spray-painted anti-Jewish obscenities and crude swastikas in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.
Police are reviewing surveillance footage for clues to the attackers, and City Councilman Chaim Deutsch told the Daily News that the suspects appeared to be “four to five teenagers.” The graffiti was discovered on Friday night.
The vandalism appears to be unconnected to similar acts of vandalism that took place Saturday night in the heavily Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park. The NYPD arrested former New York policeman Michael Setiawan, 36, on Sunday in connection with those acts, which targeted houses, cars and a yeshiva. Setiawan was subsequently moved to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
Manhattan Beach is home to many Jews from the former Soviet Union.
“We have to get to the bottom of this,” Rabbi Yehoshua Zelikovitz, head of the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center, told the Daily News. “This is a neighborhood of tolerance.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
