Reaction to Brooklyn Heights’ Night of Hate

By on September 25, 2007 6:29 pm in News

The Brooklyn Eagle has an extensive report on neighborhood reaction to last night's anti-Semitic vandalism spree:

Rabbi Serge Lippe of the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue said that five or six years ago, his synagogue was hit by a graffiti “tagger” who included “one or two swastikas” in addition to the graffiti. The difference, he said, is that now the graffiti was specifically anti-Semitic. He added that the homes seem to have been tagged at random – the Columbia Place house is owned by local realtor Kevin Carberry, who is Irish-American.

Carberry himself told the Eagle that he was “completely blown away” and shocked by the incident. He added that on the building next door, which is owned by Long Island College Hospital, the vandals had drawn a swastika with the words “Kill the Jews.”

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, assistant rabbi at B’nai Avraham, said the incident had not been preceded by any phone calls or other threats. “I grew up in England, where you often hear about desecration of Jewish cemeteries and anti-Semitism,” he recalled. “One of the reason I came to the United States was because of the image of freedom and tolerance.” For this reason, he said, he found the synagogue defacement extremely disconcerting. (Full Story)

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  • http://www.petebrush.com pbdotc

    you want to see some hate, check out the comments (some in yiddish) on crownheights.info

    for example, here:

    http://www.crownheights.info/index.php?itemid=2137

    and pretty much all over the site

    hate is ugly no matter where it comes from.

  • Publius

    pbdotc:

    I don\’t perceive those comments on the Crown Heights Blog as hateful. I see them expressing frustration that walking down the street in Crown Heights could be deadly for innocent people.

    If gunshots were a regular occurance in Brooklyn Heights, most people would question who\’s doing the shooting, what the police are doing about it, and how to protect your family and neighbors from getting caught in crossfire.

    And may I ask what was the purpose of your posting? What does it have to do in the least bit with the swastikas and \”Kill the Jews\” graffitti? Were you trying to insinuate something?

  • http://www.petebrush.com pbdotc

    publius,

    “Let them kill each other in the projects and at their rap concerts, not on the streets where we walk.”

    you don’t find that hateful? interesting.

    i’m not “insinuating” anything. i’m saying (i’ll go ahead and repeat it since you are unable to read my first comment properly):

    hate is ugly no matter where it comes from.

  • spm

    I concur with Publius – what was the point of that blog posting? We’re dealing with an incident here in the Heights and that is the focus of this blog: Brooklyn Heights.

    As a note, the NYPD police force as well as the Hate Crime Unit was out in full force last night. They are encouraging anyone who may know something regarding the incident on Remsen and Columbia PLace to contact the police with information.

    You’re right, pbdotc, hate is ugly, but don’t use a tit for tat when it comes to it. Let’s just all work together and find the people who have committed the crimes in the first place.

  • Penny

    I appreciated knowing about the comments posted on the Crown Heights blog. You right about the uglieness of those words (and there was lots of nastiness in the Yiddish, too) as well as the ugliness of the swastikas.

  • nabeguy

    It must be the rare BH air and how it effects people that keeps ugly and moronic incidents like this to an absolute minimum. Considering that BH and CH encompass one of the largest Middle Eastern communities in NYC, the fact that incidents like this are few and far betweeni is a testament to the tolerance, acceptance and respect that all the area residents afford each other.