Brooklyn home vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti

Police investigating harassment of Satmar Hasidic families in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood as hate crime

NEW YORK — A three-family Brooklyn house was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti, including swastikas and the words “Hitler was a hero” scrawled on the door.

The building’s residents, all Hasidic Satmar Jews, discovered the graffiti on Saturday morning, JP Updates reported. The New York Police Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime.

The vandalism occurred Friday night in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, a once predominantly African-American neighborhood that in recent years has gentrified and has also seen a growing number of Hasidic Jews move in.

According to DNA Info New York, the three families that live in the building have been harassed since moving in about a month ago.

“Most people on the block are very friendly,” Yehuda Kohn, who said he performed contracting work for the building’s owner, told DNA Info. “But this weekend someone took it to the next level.”

The previous harassment reportedly included someone banging on the door and yelling and repeated deliveries of Chinese food and pizza that the residents did not order, with requests for payment.