Hate has wound its evil way to Montauk, where police are working to identify who scrawled swastikas and hateful anti-Jewish messages at beach businesses in the ritzy town at the east end of Long Island.
“I spent the morning in Montauk cleaning up the graffiti left on a Montauk store owned by Jews,” Rabbi Josh Franklin of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons wrote on Facebook. “It feels like I’m living Kristallnacht in 2023.”
Cops said the hateful symbols and phrases were plastered across the doors, fences, and picnic tables of two downtown restaurants — Naturally Good and Sausages Pizza and Pastabilities — and on food trucks and signage about two miles away at Ditch Plains Beach sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning.
The crudely-spelled missives have rattled the close-knit community. They come against a backdrop of rising antisemitism in the wake of the bloody Hamas terror attack against Israel on Oct. 7 Hate crimes in New York City have spiked with more than 50 reported in a recent one-week period, according to the NYPD.
Tom Phillips, 75, a local business owner, said the hate seems to be spreading.
“It’s terrible and it seems like it’s everywhere,” Phillips said. “This is a hateful symbol. There’s nothing good about that, plain and simple, none, because of what happened historically.”
In Montauk, swastikas were spray-painted in black at the Naturally Good Foods and Cafe, where ‘Jews die’ was also scrawled on fencing in German.
Another swastika was spray-painted on food trucks at Ditch Plains Beach, a popular nearby surfing spot, with the words ‘Free Palestine’ written next to it.
East Hampton Police Department Capt. Chris Anderson said cops are investigating the incidents and that the graffiti could be connected to events in the Middle East.
“That would be something that we would be looking into,” Anderson said. “We have to keep an open mind in the investigation. We have not ruled that possibility out.”
He said the Suffolk County Police Department’s hate crimes unit is also investigating.
Business owners and local leaders called for tolerance and healing.
“We hope that the messages of hatred which defaced our local business today serve as a reminder of the work that needs to be done,” the owners of Naturally Good said in a social media post.
Outraged residents echoed the sentiment.
“It’s scary,” said Jordan Bromley, 42, who works nearby. “I think it might be some stupid kid. The spelling mistakes lead me to believe it was some silly kid or someone who doesn’t have a real grasp on language. I really hope it was just some disillusioned kid. Hopefully not something else. With the implications of the war, it’s terrifying.”
The graffiti was the latest in a string of hateful incidents across the city and state in the wake of the war.
In Manhattan last week, Jewish students at Cooper Union were forced to barricade themselves inside a building while pro-Hamas protesters hunted them down. Gov. Hochul on Monday condemned hate speech at Cornell University after antisemitic threats were posted to a university forum.
“We will not tolerate threats or hatred or antisemitism,” Hochul said during a campus visit. “If you’re going to engage in these harmful actions, hate crimes, breaking our laws, you will be caught, and you will be prosecuted.”