After news of a Greenpoint jewelry store selling swastika earrings made news yesterday, area politicians wasted no time heaping on the outrage. It's good red meat for the base, but there's just one problem: the symbol—which as we noted yesterday, predates the Nazis by thousands of years—isn't the same one that Hitler used. There has been plenty of analysis about this, but if you look closely (below), the differences are undeniable. Whereas the Nazi symbol is angled in the shape of a diamond, the symbol when used in Tibetan Buddhism is oriented as a square. And, more importantly, the branches of the symbol are reversed for the Nazi sign. But whatever, outrage! more ›

We just can't keep up with fashion, what with the chocolate and jewel-encrusted brassieres that seem to be all the rage these days. Still, these earrings that a reader found at Bejeweled in Greenpoint strike us as a fashion "nein." more ›

We haven't been paying much attention to the NYC Prep kids on Bravo's reality show... yet it's still not surprising that one of them, Sebastian Oppenheim, has some scandalous photos that just leaked to Perez Hilton. Blowing right past the standard sexually-driven teen star photos that usually surface, this guy went straight for anti-Semitism—"cruising around in a town car with his buddy, wasting time and tape by making swastikas and fake Hitler mustaches." Classy. Chuck Bass would never pull this sh*t. [via NY Mag] more ›

School's out—here comes trouble. Two teenagers have been arrested after they went on "an anti-Semitic spree" on Thursday afternoon in Manhattan. Two boys, 15 and 16 respectively, drew swastikas in black Sharpie on walls at both the Bialystoker Synagogue and the United Hebrew Center on the Lower East Side. At the Hebrew Center, they also lit off smoke bombs; at the synagogue, they hurled eggs and also wrote an anti-Semitic slur on the wall. The synagogue happens to be the East Broadway temple where Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has worshiped since he was four years old. Silver told NY1, "This is a crime, not against the synagogue; this is a crime against society. When people choose to desecrate a house of worship, it doesn't matter whether it's a church, a synagogue. It is just a despicable act that really should tug at the heartstrings of all of us." It's believed that a nearby surveillance camera led police to the two teens. more ›

Yesterday morning a painted swastika was found at 800 Bedford Avenue (between Park and Flushing) in Williamsburg, it was one of five that were discovered on that block, and one of many discovered in recent weeks. more ›

Sure, getting dumped hurts, but does that mean you need to deface an entire neighborhood? A Brooklyn man was arrested after police discovered he was behind a number of swastikas found in Brooklyn, apparently acting out after being left for another (possibly more stable) man. more ›

Today is a citywide "Day Out Against Hate." City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the Reverend Al Sharpton have spearheaded the event, which was prompted by a number of disturbing hate crime incidents, from swastikas in Brooklyn Heights to a noose found at the Columbia University campus. The Politicker was at one of the events this morning, where Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz "suggested, rather strongly, that city public school students be required to make... more ›