Bigoted graffiti found on Rockaway Beach resort club

New York Times

On the Friday evening before the final big weekend of summer, members of one of New York’s last private beach clubs, the Silver Gull in Queens, received an ominous email.

The club’s playground would be closed, the manager wrote, “due to the recent and increasing incidence of vandalism from within the club.”

Word soon spread that the playground had been covered with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti. “Heil Hitler” was scrawled in large block letters. White walls were smeared with a red swastika and racial slurs targeting black people. The words “gas chamber” were painted on a door, according to photos shared with The New York Times.

 The graffiti at the club, which sits on federal seashore, was quickly painted over by the management, according to a club member, and the police were called.

Sgt. Richard Firrito, a spokesman for the United States Park Police in New York, said the incident was being investigated as a bias crime.

Investigators believe a group broke into a shed that the club uses for arts programs on Friday and vandalized the interior. The vandals then proceeded to “trash the room,” Sergeant Firrito said. He first said the incident appeared to have happened after the beach club had closed for the day, but later clarified that it apparently had occurred during opening hours.

Harold Bretstein, a son of Holocaust survivors who has been a member of the oceanfront club for about 20 years, said the incident hurt.

“You can gloss it over. You can talk about it being a prank,” Mr. Bretstein said. “But it’s much more than a prank, especially in terms of the times we’re living in when you’re seeing a rise in anti-Semitism everywhere.”

 This is where the classic movie The Flamingo Kid was filmed 35 years ago.

 

Well that sure backfired

From the NY Post:

Eleventh-hour campaign mailings from the New York State Democratic Committee imply Cynthia Nixon is anti-Semitic — prompting an online maelstrom of outrage and denials Saturday night, with Gov. Cuomo and the state party calling the mailer a “mistake.”

“With anti-Semitism and bigotry on the rise, we can’t take a chance with inexperienced Cynthia Nixon,” reads the mailer, which says it was paid for by the New York State Democratic Committee.
It goes on to accuse Nixon of being against the funding of yeshivas — a topic she’s actually dodged — and falsely accuses her of being “silent on the rise of anti-Semitism” and of supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten, and her wife, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum — whose LGBT-friendly synagogue, Congregation Beth Simhat Torah, on W. 30th Street, Nixon attends — issued a joint Facebook posting at 9 p.m. calling the mailing “beyond the pale.”

“How dare you, @nydems?!” tweeted NYC Council Member Brad Lander.

“Smearing @CynthiaNixon (whose kids are being raised Jewish, BTW) as soft on anti-Semitism & lying about her position on Israel in order to fearmonger and shill for votes is a shameful dead-end for our party,” he tweeted.

When you're supposedly 30 points up on your opponent, there's really no need to sink to this level. Maybe the polls are off...

Greek neo-Nazis moving into Queens

Don't normally post politician press releases, but this one is a doozy...

"Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr, Assembly Member Aravella Simotas, community and religious leaders today rallied at a press conference to protest Greek Neo-Nazi Party Golden Dawn’s expansion into New York City. Golden Dawn announced in late September that they would be opening up a headquarters in New York, and there have been reports of activity and sightings of their hateful literature around Astoria, Queens, home to one of the biggest Greek communities in the country.

The Golden Dawn party, an extremist right-wing party in Greece, recently made inroads this past August in Greek elections, winning 18 of Greek Parliament’s 300. The party leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, has denied that German Nazis used gas chambers to systematically kill Jews, and the party has been accused by Human Rights Watch of inciting violence against immigrants in Greece.

“I am standing here today with a broad coalition of Greek and Jewish leadership, and with members of the greater Astoria community, to send a clear message to the Golden Dawn party that is trying to make inroads in New York City,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “You are not welcome in this community, this city, or this country. Your hatred and bigotry will fall on deaf ears in Queens, the most diverse county in America, where people of every race, creed and nationality live side by side in harmony.”

State Senator Michael Gianaris said, “The painful lessons of our own history have taught us that extremism and intolerance beget violence, oppression and suffering. I stand with Greek-American leadership like the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, who have made clear that extremist and divisive groups like Golden Dawn are not welcome in our community. There is no place more inappropriate for a group like this than western Queens, which celebrates its diversity and openness to all peoples.”

Assembly Member Aravella Simotas said, “New York City, and Astoria in particular, are models of diversity and tolerance. There is no room for any kind of hate group to promote an anti-immigrant agenda in our city, especially here in the heart of our community,” Simotas said. “I immigrated to this country from Greece with my parents 33 years ago, and we were welcomed in Astoria with open arms by the generations of immigrants that came before us. This is what we in Astoria stand for as a community – not hatred and violence against immigrants, women and those who may be different from us.”

“While we vigorously defend freedom of speech, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, together with all freedom-loving New Yorkers, are deeply offended by the presence here in Queens, the most diverse borough in the most diverse city in the world, of this xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic movement. Their ideology is rejected by the Greek community here in Queens and we will continue to work with our local ethnic and faith partners to combat all forms of racism and intolerance,” said Alan S. Jaffe, President of Jewish Community Relations Council of New York."

Signs of anti-Semitism at Floyd Bennett Field

"Please excuse the informal introduction, my name is Pat Cotillo, Jr. and I am a freelance photographer. While out on a personal assignment at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn I was approached by a Jill Weingarten who works at the Floyd Bennett Field Gardens Association Inc. She asked if I would be willing to take some pictures of the recent Anti-Semitic vandalism that has occurred on their grounds. Due to all the rash of Anti-Semitic attacks I thought you may be interested in the following photos."