NEW YORK, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Congregation leaders at a New York synagogue were shocked this weekend to find vandals had spray-painted obscenities and a swastika on its doors.
Congregation leaders thought it was a simple act of vandalism when the swastika appeared, but their fears grew when it was followed up by a number of obscenities and broken windows, the New York Daily News reported Sunday.
"Last night, when it was on one door, I thought criminal mischief," Executive Director Sylvia Jacobs said of Friday's vandalism. "This morning, I am physically sick over this because now it's not just criminal mischief."
The swastika was initially found Friday night, but police found additional graffiti around the synagogue in Plandome, N.Y., when they arrived Saturday morning.
Jacobs told the Long Island newspaper that Reconstructionist Synagogue officials were hoping the incident could serve as a warning to the general public.
"We really want this to be educational, that bias is not gone in the United States, be it Muslim, black, Jewish," she said.
