Mayor-elect Mamdani condemns swastika spray-painted on Jewish school
While Jewish families across New York City were processing election results on Tuesday, vandals spray-painted multiple large red swastikas on the walls of Magen David Yeshivah, one of the largest Sephardic Jewish schools in Brooklyn, N.Y.
A swastika spray-painted in red on a window of Magen David Yeshivah in Brooklyn, N.Y., Nov. 5, 2023. Credit: NYPD Hate Crimes.
The New York Post reported that the suspect “wore all black” and “fled on foot.”
“Brooklyn’s Jewish community wakes up to two swastikas at Magen David Yeshivah in Gravesend,” representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) posted on social media, urging mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to condemn the graffiti.
City and national figures, including Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, the Combat Antisemitism Movement and Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District in Upstate New York, also linked the vandalism to Mamdani’s victory.
“It’s probably not a coincidence that Magen David Yeshivah was attacked with a swastika on the night of the Mamdani election, after they required that all applicants to their school be registered to vote,” Petlin said.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) condemned the graffiti as “a wake-up call that Mamdani is ushering in the pro-terrorist antisemitic takeover of NYC aided and abetted by the worst governor in America.” She also called on both Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to respond.
After Hochul issued a statement calling the graffiti a “hateful display of antisemitism,” Stefanik fired back, writing that the governor should “get your endorsed Communist antisemite to condemn.”
By midday on Wednesday, Mamdani released his own statement: “This is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism, and it has no place in our beautiful city. As mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city.”
Community WhatsApp groups in the Flatbush and Boro Park neighbourhoods of Brooklyn reported finding more swastikas on Wednesday near a Jewish cemetery on McDonald Avenue; carved into the seat of a school bus for Orthodox Jewish children with special needs; and on a wall near the offices of Central Hatzalah.
JNS
