WATCH: Man Carves 30 Swastikas Into Wet Concrete On Brooklyn Sidewalk

An unidentified man carved dozens of swastikas into a sidewalk in Midwood, Brooklyn. Image by YouTube

By Ari Feldman July 11, 2017

An unidentified man was caught on camera carving dozens of swastikas into a sidewalk in Midwood, Brooklyn. Police in the area were alerted after property owners on on the 200 block of Newkirk Avenue reported the vandalism.

A police spokesman did not say whether the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force was involved in the search.

The swastikas were carved just steps from several major Jewish institutions on Midwood’s Ocean Parkway, including the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center and the Chabad Lubavitch of Kensington.

“What has happened to society that people take any pleasure in spreading hate?” Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind wrote in an email to Gothamist. “Imagine the reaction of Holocaust survivors and their descendants who live in this community when they come across these symbols of hate?”

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO