{"id":220917,"date":"2026-05-05T18:01:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/220917\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T18:01:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:01:39","slug":"synagogues-homes-a-school-and-a-kristallnacht-memorial-plaque-sprayed-with-swastikas-in-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/220917\/","title":{"rendered":"Synagogues, homes, a school and a Kristallnacht memorial plaque sprayed with swastikas in Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"

A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week\u2019s daily newsletter, rounding up the latest on politics, culture, food and what\u2019s new with Jews in the city.\u00a0Sign up here to get it in your inbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Several synagogues, homes and a Jewish center containing a preschool were vandalized with swastikas overnight on Monday in Forest Hills, a Queens neighborhood with a dense Jewish population.<\/p>\n

The graffiti also included the word \u201cHitler,\u201d spray-painted on the Rego Park Jewish Center, and other antisemitic messages. A swastika sprayed on Congregation Machane Chodosh defaced a plaque dedicated to victims of Kristallnacht, the 1938 riots against Jews that presaged the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Jewish City Council Speaker Julie Menin visited the area with other council members on Monday. \u201cWhen rabbis and congregants arrived to pray this morning, they expected to be met with their usual loving community,\u201d she said on X<\/a>. \u201cWhen a family woke up, they were prepared to begin an otherwise normal week. Instead, they were met with terrifying signals of hatred and threats of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was \u201chorrified and angered\u201d by the graffiti in a statement. \u201cThis is not just vandalism \u2014 it is a deliberate act of antisemitic hatred meant to instill fear,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cThere is no place for antisemitism in Queens or anywhere in our city. I stand in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident was also condemned by\u00a0Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a>,\u00a0Jewish Community Relations Council of New York CEO Mark Treyger<\/a>, Consul General of Israel in New York Ofir Akunis, Rep. Grace Meng and other local leaders.<\/p>\n

The NYPD is searching for at least four people responsible for the vandalism, which it is investigating as a hate crime. Jews in NYC were targeted in 60% of all confirmed hate crimes last month, according to NYPD data released on Monday.<\/p>\n

Officials were planning an emergency press conference outside Congregation Mahane Chodosh on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

NY-12 candidates Micah Lasher and Alex Bores answered a range of Jewish- and Israel-related questions during a candidates\u2019 forum yesterday at The Jewish Center, a synagogue on the Upper West Side. Our Joseph Strauss was on the scene.<\/p>\n

Asked about increasing opposition toward Israel in the Democratic Party, both expressed their support for the Jewish state. Lasher said it would be \u201cpart of my primary purpose as a member of Congress to say the safety and security of Israel is very important.\u201d Bores answered, \u201cWe should be able to stand up to people in our party and say how important our relationship is with the State of Israel and how important it is to ensure the rights of everyone in the region, including the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack Schlossberg, the candidate who has led in polling in the heavily Jewish district, did not attend the forum.<\/p>\n

In an interview after the event, Bores said he\u2019s not concerned about Schlossberg\u2019s lead. \u201cJack\u2019s lead was driven by name ID,\u201d he said, pointing to his campaign\u2019s internal polling, which showed Bores carrying a significant lead among voters who are familiar with all major candidates. That polling was released a couple of weeks ago. \u201cI don\u2019t have anything more recent \u2014 I know that other campaigns have, and the fact that they haven\u2019t released it means they probably didn\u2019t like the results,\u201d Bores said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A version of this piece first ran as part of the New York Jewish Week\u2019s daily newsletter, rounding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-220917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}