Anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Palestine Liberation Organization graffiti has begun showing up in city subway stations and trains.
Several persons called the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to say that the graffiti included statements such as “Kill a Jew today and tomorrow you’ll feel better”; “The PLO lives, Israel won’t much longer”; “Get Israel put of the Middle East Palestine for the Palestinians.” In addition, drawings of swastikas appeared alongside several of these remarks. According to some of the callers, this graffiti began to appear about the time that PLO leader Yasir Arafat addressed the United Nations General Assembly.
A copy of a letter complaining about this situation was received by the JTA today. The letter, signed by Alex D. Novitsky of the Jewish Journal in. Brooklyn, was sent to Daniel Scannell, senior executive officer of the New York City Transit Authority, with a copy to Mayor Beame. Novitsky’s letter stated that the anti-Semitic graffiti, “Kill a Jew today.” was spotted by him on the BMT “M” line subway car 8065 last Friday.
His letter stated in part: “During this month of December, people of the Jewish faith are celebrating the Chanukah holiday and people of the Christian faith are celebrating the holy holiday of Christmas. How are the people of New York going to have a feeling of brotherhood with anti-Semitic graffiti remarks written in city government owned subway train cars?”Novitsky urged Scannell to “clean the subway train bigotry remarks and assign better police security in the New York City Transit Authority.”
The JTA called the Transit Authority to find out what was being done to clean the subway cars and stations of these remarks. A spokesman for the Transit Police Department told the JTA “action will be taken to correct the situation. We are going to track down the location of this train car (8065) and clean it up.” He also said the transit police will make a concerted effort to clean up other anti-Semitic graffiti “as we are doing with graffiti in general.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
