NEW YORK — Vandals scrawled at least 11 swastikas on two parks in Queens on Monday. Images of the graffiti, in Highland Park and Forest Park, showed red swastikas painted on a park sign and lined up on a series of white columns.
“This is yet another hateful incident meant to intimidate Jewish New Yorkers and divide our city. And we want to be clear: We cannot and will not accept this as normal,” said New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin.
Nazi graffiti in New York City, home to the world’s largest Diaspora community, is increasingly the new normal, though, with repeated incidents across the five boroughs in recent months, following an escalation last year, according to Anti-Defamation League data.
In some of the recent high-profile incidents, in November, on the night of New York City’s mayoral election, vandals scrawled swastikas on a Jewish school in Brooklyn.
In January, in two incidents days apart, 73 swastikas were drawn on a Brooklyn playground in a Jewish area.
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Images showed blood-red swastikas lining a children’s slide and the hate symbols surrounding the name “Adolf Hitler.”
Swastikas found at a Brooklyn playground, in New York City, January 21, 2026. (Courtesy/Boro Park Shomrim)
Last month, swastikas were found on a playground in Staten Island.
Last week, swastikas and the words “Heil Hitler” were sprayed on Jewish sites, including multiple synagogues, in and around the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, home to a large Jewish population.
One of the Nazi symbols was sprayed on a congregation’s plaque dedicated to survivors of Kristallnacht, the 1938 riots against Jews in Nazi Germany that marked a turning point in the Nazis’ persecution.
The Nazi symbols have also turned up in recent months in Brooklyn on a storefront, a Jewish social services group, a yeshiva, and outside a Jewish cemetery, and on Manhattan signs, garbage cans and stores.
The Times of Israel located three swastikas within a radius of a few blocks on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Wednesday. One has remained on a fire department alarm box for more than two months.
In the latest incidents, on Wednesday, a flag with two swastikas flanking a Star of David was flown over New York University for reasons that remain unclear. The flag appeared over a building named for Jewish philanthropists Michael and Judy Steinhardt, who have donated to Jewish and pro-Israel causes, and to the university. On Thursday, another swastika was scrawled on an advertisement in Brooklyn.
On nearby Long Island, swastikas were recently scrawled on a train, in a park, and in a high school bathroom.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, center left, visits a synagogue defaced with a swastika, in Queens, New York City, May 4, 2026. (Courtesy/ New York City Council Speaker’s Office)
The Anti-Defamation League last week reported that 294 of the 1,160 antisemitic incidents in New York State last year included a swastika, or 25%. That data only covers 2025, so the recent incidents in New York City were not included. Data for 2026 is not yet available.
By comparison, in 2024, 18% of reports of antisemitism in the state, or 268 incidents, included a swastika. Swastika incidents in the state rose 10% from 2024 to 2025, as overall antisemitic incidents declined 19%.
Despite that decrease, New York State has recorded a 480% increase in antisemitic incidents since 2016, the ADL said. Jews are targeted in hate crimes in New York City more than all other groups combined, according to NYPD data.
In K-12 schools in New York State in 2025, swastikas were present in 114 of the total 141 antisemitic incidents. The ADL treats multiple incidents during one event as a single report of antisemitism, so dozens of swastikas sprayed on a playground at once would be counted as a single antisemitic incident.
Besides the graffiti, anti-Zionist activists often compare Israel to Nazi Germany with swastika signs at protests, which is legal in New York, and other graffiti in the city is antisemitic but does not include swastikas. In March, a vandal scrawled, “Kill a Jew, go to heaven,” in Manhattan’s Riverside Park.
Graffiti at a subway station on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, August 6, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
There have been a few announced arrests.
After the January playground swastika spree, police said two 15-year-old boys were arrested.
Last week, the NYPD released surveillance footage showing four suspects wanted on suspicion of vandalizing the Jewish homes and synagogues in Queens.
Last month, after a teen drew a swastika on the wall of a Long Island bathroom, police found explosives at the boy’s home. The teen and his father were arrested.
Asked if there had been other recent arrests for swastika graffiti, the NYPD provided details about the January arrests of the two teenagers, but no additional information.
An anti-Zionist protester brandishes a swastika at a protest against the Hillel student group at Baruch College, in New York City, June 5, 2024. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
The ideology of the vandals is unclear. Neo-Nazis use swastikas to demonize Jews, while the far left uses swastikas and Nazi comparisons to demonize Israel and “Zionists.”
The comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany is an anti-Zionist trope promulgated by a Soviet Union propaganda campaign dating back to the 1960s.
The swastika graffiti in New York sometimes targets Jewish sites, and other times is scrawled onto Israel-related graffiti or signs on city streets, such as stickers that showed the Israeli hostages in Gaza before their return to Israel.
A swastika drawn onto an image of an Israeli hostage, in New York City, August 7, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
New York City streets have been a battlefield since the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel.
Soon after the start of the war, Jews in the city began posting fliers showing the hostages around the city, which were often swiftly torn down or defaced, setting off a “poster war” between the two sides.
The street battle continues to a lesser extent, with both anti-Zionist and pro-Jewish graffiti and stickers showing up around the city. The two sides sometimes cover, remove or alter images from the other side.
A swastika drawn inside a Star of David, next to graffiti saying ‘The people of Israel live’ in Hebrew, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, June 15, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
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