Anti-Semitic Acts Flare Up, Raising Tensions in New York

Bejeweled, a jewelry store in Brooklyn, has recently come under attack by politicians, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Councilmember Steven Levin, for its selling of earrings resembling swastikas.

One of the store managers has pointed out that the earrings are made to represent an ancient Buddhist symbol for eternity commonly found in Tibet. Actually the design is the reverse of the hated Nazi symbol.

The condemnation of the store, which will no longer carry the earrings, illustrates the increased tensions in the city after a wave of anti-Semitic recently. Over the past four months, at least nine such hate crimes have been reported in the metropolitan area, according to Stringer.

The attacks range from vandalism of property to assault.

Early Wednesday morning, Rabbi Nosson Schuman awoke to a Molotav cocktail being thrown into his bedroom window of his residence above Congregation Beth El, a small synagogue in Rutherford, NJ. 

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In November, an Avenue J subway sign in Brooklyn was changed to read "Avenue Jew," the word "Nazi" was spray painted across sidewalks in a heavily Jewish part of Williamsburg, and a man was stabbed in Park Slope after two men cursed him with anti-Semitic slurs.

Earlier this month, three Orthodox Jews, including a rabbi, were attacked in Midwood. And just this past weekend, swastikas were painted across businesses in Midtown Manhattan.

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