Anti-Semitic graffiti was found on an overpass near the Grand Central Parkway service road in Forest Hills, the Queens Chronicle reported Tuesday.
A swastika and racial slurs were discovered near 64th Avenue and 64th Road on the morning of April 13. The images were removed after being examined by police from the 112th Precinct.
“I am utterly disgusted and angered at such expressions of hate and bigotry, especially during the week of one of the holiest religious observance for Jews,” said Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills).
“These images serve as nothing but a terrible reminder of the prejudice that still exists today,” she sad. “It breaks my heart to know that someone would stoop so low as to evoke fear and dreadful memories of the past,” she said.
Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) said he was “appalled to see such malicious and offensive action against our community."
Anti-Semitic graffiti was also discovered at the Avenue Z Jewish Center in Brooklyn last week. A Star of David and the word “Jew” were found etched into the sidewalk near the synagogue in the Sheepshead Bay area, with the initials “RUS” inscribed near the graffiti. The vandal used the same initials on previous occasions, desecrating the synagogue’s windows, according to center president Jay Freese.
“We’ve been targeted for a while,” Freese said. “There’s no swastikas yet, but it’s obvious anti-Semitism is in the neighborhood.”
Tonight marks the beginning of Holocaust Memorial Day. In Israel, flags are at half mast, the country stands at attention in memory when a siren is sounded in the morning, places of entertainment are closed and the television and radio programs are about the catastrophe that befell the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis.