New York officials condemn vandalism targeting Jewish museum leaders
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
A protester is detained by police officers in front of the Brooklyn Museum during a protest on May 31.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
NEW YORK - Graffiti on the homes of Jewish leaders of the Brooklyn Museum prompted concern on June 12 among several elected officials in New York, who condemned the vandalism as anti-Semitic.
Politicians including New York Mayor Eric Adams and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer shared images of a Brooklyn home covered in red paint, with a sign that included the name of the museum’s director and the words “White Supremacist Zionist”.
Mr Schumer, who represents the state of New York, called the vandalism “the face of hatred”.
“Jewish Americans made to feel unsafe in their own home – just because they are Jewish,” he said, speaking on the Senate floor.
Several elected officials, including some on Democratic party’s left, denounced that the attacks targeted people who are Jewish.
According to police sources cited by CNN, five homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn were targeted, and the incidents are under investigation by the city’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
The New York Times said that along with the director of the museum, the institution’s president and two administrators, all of whom identify as Jewish, were included.
The New York Police Department did not immediately respond when contacted by AFP.
The Brooklyn Museum said that a complaint had been filed and “we are deeply troubled by these horrible acts of vandalism targeting museum leadership”.
At the end of May, some pro-Palestinian activists protested at the museum, calling on it to break all ties with Israel and to denounce the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza.
Some 30 demonstrators were arrested.
New York has been the stage of almost daily protests and marches from pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli supporters respectively since Oct 7
That day’s deadly attack by Hamas prompted Israel’s relentless, now nine-month-long bloody war on Gaza that a UN investigation has called “a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Gaza”.
New York also saw controversy earlier this week when activists demonstrated and lit smoke bombs in front of a Manhattan building where an exhibition on the Hamas attack on an electric music festival was being held.
US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents part of the city, called it “atrocious anti-Semitism – plain and simple”.
“Anti-Semitism has no place in our city,” she said. AFP
