Some time between 930pm last night and 830am this morning, someone or multiple someones spray painted three swastikas on a public stairway landing approximately 50 feet from our house in the Bronx and approximately ten feet from our property line. I was at synagogue when this was discovered and when I got home NYPD was already in scene -- and still is, over four hours later. So far there are no clues and NYPD is investigating to see whether any surveillance cameras might have caught someone in the act.
This is at least the fourth swastika event I have seen since I moved to the Bronx 17 years ago this month. Even in supposedly enlightened parts of the US we still have hate. (The Bronx was Trump's worst county in the entire US.) And I have certainly experienced anti-Semitism plenty of times. But this is the first time that I may have been the specific target of a hate crime.
My wife saw the swastikas and had to get to work, she is a family physician and has to take care of her patients no matter how upset she is. I didn't have any classes, but I cancelled all my meetings and stayed home so that I could be with the police as they investigate. NYPD has spray paint just for the purpose of covering up hate grafitti like this! I am upset, but grateful that things aren't worse.
Two doors down from me is an African American family and the father in that family came by to lend support. I thought of how swastikas get lots of police attention but Confederate flags are normalized in most of America.
We have a long way to go. I will look at this as incentive to continue to have zero tolerance for racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry and to fight such evil wherever it is.