Swastika painted on New York synagogue

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NEW YORK, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- New York police said a Brooklyn senior center and synagogue was vandalized with a spray-painted swastika and an anti-Semitic message.

Rabbi Aron Heineman, executive director of the Brookdale Senior Citizen Center, said he discovered the 3-foot-tall Nazi symbol and anti-Semitic message early Tuesday morning, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

"This is a huge swastika," said state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn. "It's not a little thing. It really stands out."

"This is a community of Holocaust survivors," said Hikind. "It makes you wonder what is going; this sickness."

The New York Police Department hate crimes task force is investigating the vandalism.

Hikind told the New York Post that swastikas were also found painted on a home Monday on 40th Street between 15th and 16th avenues.