It’s Only My Opinion
A Britisher’s View
Big Screecher
Not for Nuthin’
Speak Out
Standing O
A wide swath of Midwood looked like a war zone after anti-Semites torched cars and scrawled hate graffiti to mark the gruesome anniversary of Hitler’s infamous blitzkrieg on Jews, Kristallnacht.
Residents awoke on Nov. 11 to find three cars — a BMW X5, a Jaguar and a Lexus — torched on Ocean Parkway between avenues I and J with swastikas and “KKK,” and “F--- the Jews” spray-painted nearby on benches and cars.
“We’re not talking about someone making a little fire,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D–Borough Park), who stayed at the scene for hours on Friday. “These three cars looked like they had been bombed.”
The scene was also littered with broken glass from beer bottles.
Residents reported hearing laughing and shouting outside their homes in the wee hours of the morning and thinking nothing of it — before hearing the gunshot-like sounds of the cars exploding in flames around 5 am.
Many were visibly shaken by the outburst that shook their normally quiet community.
“This is shocking,” said a woman who lives a few doors down from the scene of the crime, but did not want to give her name. “You’re nervous because they burned the cars. Would they do this to our houses?”
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office says it will use DNA and fingerprints police claim to have found on the beer bottles left at the scene in identify the bigots.
According to Hikind, gasoline was used to burn the cars.
The tight-knit community in Midwood has rallied in the aftermath of the heinous attack.
On Sunday, residents joined by Assemblyman Hikind, state Sen.Eric Adams (D–Park Slope), Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio (D), and councilmembers Letitia James (D–Fort Greene), Brad Lander (D–Park Slope) and Jumaane Williams (D–Flatbush), marched to denounce the crimes.
Leaders in the Jewish community have offered up over $56,000 for information leading to the arrest of the criminals — including $25,000 raised by David Ben-Hooren, the publisher of The Jewish Voice and Opinion, $4,000 by the Anti-Defamanation League, and $1,000 from the office of Councilman David Greenfield.
The crime occurred around the anniversary of the “Night of Broken Glass” — a series of mob attacks against Jews in Germany between Nov. 9 and 10 in 1938.
©2011 Community Newspaper Group
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