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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 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. |
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.” |