Four school buses were vandalized with swastikas and antisemitic messages outside the United Talmudical Academy of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on Monday morning, according to police. The graffiti included the phrases “F–k Jews,” “F–k Israel,” “Free Palestine,” and “America First,” scrawled in black spray paint on the buses parked near Bedford Avenue and Williamsburg Street West.
The discovery was made around 9:50 a.m. by someone affiliated with the yeshiva, who then contacted authorities. The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident, and no arrests have been made.
This vandalism occurred less than a week after the same yeshiva received a phoned-in bomb threat on Oct. 9. A similar threat was also made to the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School shortly before.
Both schools were evacuated as a precaution while the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit and K9 teams swept the premises and declared them safe. The NYPD reported last month that hate crimes had increased by nearly 13% in the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in the previous year, with anti-Jewish incidents constituting over half of these crimes.