Anti-Semitic vandalism targets Brooklyn neighborhood

Vandals defaced a largely Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood with anti-Semitic graffiti, one of two such sprees in the borough in the space of two days.

The New York Police Department is looking for the suspects who spray-painted anti-Jewish obscenities and crude swastikas in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.

Police are reviewing surveillance footage for clues to the attackers, and City Councilman Chaim Deutsch told the Daily News that the suspects appeared to be “four to five teenagers.” The graffiti was discovered on Friday night.

The vandalism appears to be unconnected to similar acts of vandalism that took place Saturday night in the heavily Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park. The NYPD arrested former New York policeman Michael Setiawan, 36, on Sunday in connection with those acts, which targeted houses, cars and a yeshiva. Setiawan was subsequently moved to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

Manhattan Beach is home to many Jews from the former Soviet Union.

“We have to get to the bottom of this,” Rabbi Yehoshua Zelikovitz, head of the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center, told the Daily News. “This is a neighborhood of tolerance.”