Beach (illustrative)
Beach (illustrative)Flash 90

A hamlet on Long Island was hit with anti-Semitic graffiti only hours before the start of Rosh Hashanah.

According to News 12 New Jersey, a photo of a swastika drawn on a bench in the Great South Bay Estates of Copiague, Long Island was taken shortly before the start of Rosh Hashanah.

The bench is located on a private beach that requires an access code to enter.

"We don't put up with vandalism or anti-Semitism or anything like that," Vincent Murphy, president of the Great South Bay Estates Homeowners Association, told News 12.

The homeowners association said they were going to clean up the hate symbol and they may even get rid of the bench.

The anti-Semitic vandalism before the start of the Jewish New Year was condemned by a member of the town council of Babylon, in which Copiague is located.

"It's unacceptable, certainly won't be tolerated," said Councillor DuWayne Gregory, who noted that they have an anti-bias task force.

There has been an alarming increase in anti-Semitic and swastika graffiti across the United States in the last year.

In the first two weeks of September, multiple incidents have already been reported.

Right after Rosh Hashanah, Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham, Massachusetts was vandalized with several swastikas that were carved into its sign.

A few days earlier, a swastika was discovered spray painted onto the outside of an apartment belonging to a Jewish couple in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

At the beginning of the month, the town of Westfield, New Jersey was again hit with swastika vandalism when the Nazi symbol was discovered etched into playground equipment at a park, the latest in a series of anti-Semitic graffiti incidents that the mayor blamed on teenagers.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)