(JTA) — A New York City councilwoman received an anti-Semitic letter that referred to the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz of Queens, who is Jewish, received the letter on Wednesday, the New York Post reported.
“You had been defending all stinky, filthy, dirty jewish population in New York City as well as the stinks mof’s living in Israel, russia, former soviet union countries, in western European and Latin American countries,” read the typewritten letter dated Nov. 12 and beginning with the salutation “Dear Karen.”
A handwritten sentence at the end of the letter said: “What do you think about those stinky Jews killed, 11 and 4 hurt in that synagogue. What these mother****r rats are doing in other states of the USA???”
Koslowitz’s grandfather was killed in Poland in 1923 because he was Jewish; the rest of her family fled to New York. She told the Post she felt “personally” targeted by the letter, which was signed by a constituent who lives close to her district office. “Since I am Jewish I feel he targeted me,” she said.
The New York Police Department told the Post that the letter is “vile, disgusting and reprehensible,” but it is not a hate crime.
