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Is this graffiti anti-Semitic or anti-violence?

By Stephen Brown
The Brooklyn Paper
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Community Newspaper Group / Sylvan Migdal
This graffito was painted on a fire alarm box on Prospect Park West at Second Street.

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Some sicko wrote, “Geese first, Jews next,” on an emergency call box in Park Slope over the weekend — but it’s unclear whether the vandalism is an anti-Semitic call for violence or a sincere attempt to link this summer’s federal goose extermination to one of history’s greatest atrocities.

The vandalism, which appeared at Prospect Park West and Second Street, invokes the gassing of some 300 geese in Prospect Park, and also the Holocaust.

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Andy Bachman, the rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim on Garfield Place, thought the scribbling was in bad taste no matter its meaning.

“It’s either a bad joke in poor taste that falls flat, or someone too easily making reference to the extermination of Jews,” he said.

Whoever the vandal was, he or she was likely familiar with the famous statement attributed to Martin Niemoller: “First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. … Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time, no one was left to speak up.”

Bachman said that vicious, anonymous attacks like the one that are regrettably quite common.

“Jews, blacks, gays and many others are often the target of nasty graffiti,” said Bachman, adding, “It’s unfortunate.”

©2010 Community Newspaper Group

←Bay Ridge: Big time drug theft at Lowen’s
→Perspective: Let broadcasters, cable handle it

Reader Feedback

PattyA from Manhattan says:
The grafitti is very unfortunate indeed.

But, I don't know that it represents a bad joke or poor taste as much as it denotes either some very disturbed person who hates both geese and jews or someone familliar with the Niemoller quote and worried about the safety of both animals and people.

As you point out in the piece, it is hard to know exactly what is in another's mind.

Of the two possibilities, let's hope its the latter, though grafitti is certainly not the way to go.

One thing this world certainly doesn't need any more of is hate and violence.

Its sad that some people resort to stuff like this. It certainly seems to indicate a mind at great unrest.
Oct. 27, 2010, 3:36 am
Bob Scott from Brooklyn says:
Of course, there's so much graffiti and "papering" around Park Slope that it's hard to discern what each person is actually trying to say — except that they are slobs with no manners, and that Park Slopers are way too tolerant of filthy (or filth-producing) idiots.
Oct. 27, 2010, 9:13 am
Darlington from Park Slope says:
It was clearly left there by the geese, who consistently exhibit no tact in the park.
Oct. 27, 2010, 11:01 am
Or from Yellow Hook says:
It's childish scribbling on the wall, but I'm sure it can be churned up into a "Hate Crime", and make somebody somewhere into a victim, ready to soothe their hurt feelings with a huge cash settlement.

Slow news day?
Oct. 27, 2010, 11:39 am
Marty from Manhattan Beach says:
a lame cry for attention and your coverage only encourages copycat losers.
Oct. 27, 2010, 11:46 am
JJ from Mineola says:
First they came for the Geese … then they came for the Jews … when are they going to come and clean up the mess after Sunday BarBQs in Prospect Park?!?
Oct. 27, 2010, 2:49 pm
Ina says:
This has been there for months....
Oct. 28, 2010, 4:51 pm

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