The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies has been quick to react to a swastika drawn on the exterior wall of a Sydney hotel.
CEO of the NSWJBD Vic Alhadeff told J-Wire: “We spotted and photographed the swastika and have reported it to the Oaks Hyde Park Plaza in College Street in the city. We have requested that the swastikas be removed.”
Alhadeff added: “The swastika represents the ultimate in extremist ideology and racial hatred, and it is very concerning that this is how some people express their feelings.”
A spokesperson for the hotel told J-Wire that the offending swastika had been removed.
As you enter what used to be Customs House, now the City of Sydney library, at Circular Quay, you will see numbers of small swastikas embedded in the marble floor. Despite the alternative meaning of swastikas as an Indian symbol, these symbols appearing not as graffiti but permanently fixed in marble in a public building are pretty confronting. Does anyone know anything about them?
I have just checked out some entries on swastikas and Customs house and it seems this matter has been debated previously with the result that the swastikas have remained intact [even during the makeover of the building from Customs House to library] despite their potential for offensiveness to ‘minority’ groups such as Jews for instance. Our capacity for absorbing offence is singular and extraordinary.