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Ilana Glazer Event at Synagogue Is Canceled After Anti-Semitic Graffiti Is Found Ilana Glazer Event at Synagogue Is Canceled After Anti-Semitic Graffiti Is Found
(about 3 hours later)
A get-out-the-vote event at a Brooklyn synagogue featuring the comedian Ilana Glazer was canceled on Thursday night after anti-Semitic graffiti, including the words “Die Jew Rats,” was discovered scrawled on the temple’s walls, the police and officials at the synagogue said.A get-out-the-vote event at a Brooklyn synagogue featuring the comedian Ilana Glazer was canceled on Thursday night after anti-Semitic graffiti, including the words “Die Jew Rats,” was discovered scrawled on the temple’s walls, the police and officials at the synagogue said.
The event at the Union Temple of Brooklyn on Eastern Parkway in Prospect Heights was to include a question-and-answer session. Ms. Glazer, the star of “Broad City,” was scheduled to interview a radio journalist, Amy Goodman, and two candidates for the New York State Senate, Jim Gaughran and Andrew Gounardes. The vandalism, which is being investigated as a hate crime by the Police Department, jarred residents in a deeply progressive area of Brooklyn. It occurred on the heels of the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue last week and a recent spate of similar incidents in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The event, at the Union Temple of Brooklyn on Eastern Parkway in Prospect Heights, was to include a question-and-answer session. Ms. Glazer, the star of “Broad City,” was scheduled to interview a journalist, Amy Goodman, and two candidates for the New York State Senate, Jim Gaughran and Andrew Gounardes.
But shortly after 8 p.m., Ms. Glazer announced the event was canceled because the graffiti, written with a black marker, had been discovered in various locations inside the temple, which was built in 1929.But shortly after 8 p.m., Ms. Glazer announced the event was canceled because the graffiti, written with a black marker, had been discovered in various locations inside the temple, which was built in 1929.
The Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident, the police said. Other words written on the walls at various locations inside the synagogue included: “We are here,” “Hitler,” “Jew Better Be Ready,” and “End it now,” the police said. Rabbi Mark Sameth of Union Temple said he learned from the temple’s president that the vandalism was found soon after it happened.
“My first response was that it was sickening,” Rabbi Sameth said. “It would have been sickening under any circumstances, but all the more so following the horrific tragic events in Pittsburgh.”
The Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident, the police said. Other words written on the walls inside the synagogue included: “We are here,” “Hitler,” “Jew Better Be Ready” and “End it now,” the police said.
There are security cameras inside the synagogue, but it was unclear whether they recorded anyone writing the hateful messages, a police official said.There are security cameras inside the synagogue, but it was unclear whether they recorded anyone writing the hateful messages, a police official said.
The graffiti was found the same day as two swastikas were discovered spray-painted on a concrete pier near 72nd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
On Tuesday, several buildings in Brooklyn Heights were defaced with swastikas drawn in chalk, an incident that the police are also investigating as a hate crime.
Dermot Shea, the chief of detectives, told reporters on Wednesday that in the past month there has been an increase in “anti-Semitic hate crimes, particularly swastikas, on buildings in parts of the city.”
According to Police Department statistics, there have been 142 reported incidents of anti-Semitic graffiti in the city so far this year, up from 126 reports in 2017. Anti-Semitic incidents make up almost half of the 290 hate crime in the city reported to the police this year.
Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the vandalism on Friday morning on Twitter. “This is the vilest kind of hate,” Mr. de Blasio wrote, adding: “We will fight anti-Semitism with every fiber of our being. The N.Y.P.D. will find the perpetrators of this hate crime and hold them accountable.”
Rabbi Sameth said he received calls of encourgement Friday morning from “members, nonmembers, Jews, non-Jews, people in Brooklyn, people outside of Brooklyn.”
“There is no question that the community supports all of the values that we support,” he said, “and we’ll get through these very, very difficult times.”