By Gus Saltonstall
Yom Kippur is considered the holiest day of the year in Judaism. This year’s holiday began Sunday and will continue through Monday evening. At some point over the weekend prior to the holiday a person vandalized an Upper West Side newsstand with antisemitic graffiti.
“F*** Jews Die,” read the message on the newsstand at West 65th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
West Side Rag visited the newsstand Monday morning to see if the message had been erased.
The majority of the message was no longer distinguishable, but the words had not been completely wiped from the metal freezer.
An employee within the newsstand told the West Side Rag that they close on weekends and the message must have been written between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. He added that he didn’t originally notice the graffiti when he arrived that morning and couldn’t fully clean it until he spoke to his boss.
The newsstand sits directly in front of LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, as well as in close proximity to Lincoln Center and the Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex.
“Truly disgusting,” one person wrote on Twitter in response to a photo of the graffiti.
The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to West Side Rag’s request for comment.
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Are there cameras nearby that can be accessed?
I cannot understand all the hatred in this country of ours. Why? All throughout history Jews have been vilified – Why? What makes one group of people hate another? We are all human beings – why should our ethnicity or race or skin color matter? It’s time for this hatred to STOP!
There should be plenty of cameras in that area to find out who wrote it, and charge the person accordingly.
What will be the penalty for the person/s that did it?
No penalty aside from spray painting/vandalism; First Amendment free speech. Anti Semitism is legal in the US. 💩
Your chosen username “Christians Are Violent” would probably have been banned by the WSR if you had chosen a different group to tar with your broad brush. Would the WSR have published your comment if your username said, “Muslims” or “Jews” or “Blacks” ? Let’s see if they publish this comment. Your username is just as immature and offensive as the hideous and pathetic spray-painted message.
Hope a school camera picked it up, or maybe a Lincoln Center one from across the street. Ugh!
Floodgates were officially opened when The Hideous Orange One (note the Caps – I learned that from him) came on the scene. Undercurrents of unrest became full-on tsunamis of hate, beckoning and then enveloping the angry and/or troubled youth of this country.
I honestly am not even convinced these delinquents that do this stuff are actually antisemitic – they just need someone/anyone to hate. It’s the mood du jour. But, yes… it is highly concerning and disgusting, either way.
That said, no matter how mad you are at local Dem leaders, don’t forget this at the polls next year….
That orange one got the Abraham Accords done and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. So it is rather disingenuous to brand him as anti-Semitic.
Jess:“I honestly am not even convinced these delinquents that do this stuff are actually antisemitic – they just need someone/anyone to hate.”
This is the nature and definition of antisemitism.
Someone to hate.
Separately, who will pay to clean up all the graffiti?
Nothing new here. Hatred of “the other”.Jews, Blacks, Asians, gays, you name it, has been with us since the world was born.
Yes, the hatred has been with us since the world was born. However, or a # of years, prior to 2016, most of these haters hid in their parents’ basements where many of them resided. Since 2016 they now feel free to blatantly showcase their hatred.
Sad but true.
We’re not leaving.
Trump the other day said liberal Jews are destroying the country because they don’t support him. This will just get worse if he wins again.
Jess and Joanne have connected nail-head. While disgusting and far beyond any understanding or disappointment I could ever muster, this hatred is not new. Not against Jews, not against gays, not against (legal, even!) immigrants, not against POC, not against women…. we all could go on. But the resurgence can certainly be pinpointed to THAT date and THAT person. And, while fitting, it’s not Archie Bunker. Even during that time in the ’70s when Archie’s sentiments were popular enough to be showcased (allowed!) on weekly national television, the majority (presumably, hopefully) of viewers found it ridiculous to the point of hilarity. These days the rest, who find it ‘funny’ because they agree, are very loud and powerful, regardless of their numbers. We are very fortunate that where we live , those numbers are few. Don’t let those few, who have no other outlet than spray paint, spoil our reality of acceptance.
I’m hoping that you realize that All In The Family was satire and the character of Archie Bunker was written to represent a certain type of American citizenry, specifically to point out the ridiculousness of his racism. Norman Lear who created the show is Jewish. What’s shocking is that it’s no longer possible for broadcast TV shows in prime time to be able to take on hot button topics the way All in the family did in the seventies. Norman Lear was and is a genius.
On Saturday morning i spotted similar graffiti on the exteriors of Ehrlich liquor store and the West End Synagogue. Both of those were anti-gay slurs. The cops were present and taking a report in front of the liquor store.
And yet, the Sheldon Addlesons of the world donate exorbitant amounts of money to the GOP and the Orange Mussolini (well, he used to when he was alive but other member of the tribe gladly donate as well). There’s really only one party that takes the money but turns a blind eye to (or even is ok with) anti-semetic hate.