Staten Island, NY – The sight made Rabbi Lester Polonsky's bones go cold.
For the second time in a month, a symbol of hatred and genocide greeted him his congregation in Staten Island.
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A crudely formed black swastika desecrated the mahogany front door of the Randall Manor synagogue. Another, larger swastika, drawn sloppily and backward, was scrawled on a side entrance of the brick building, about 30 feet away.
The vandal's tag stood out like a slap against the synagogue's welcome plaque, where the limestone is still slightly discolored from sandblasting away the painful emblem of Nazi Germany left there just 18 days before.
"It's very heart-wrenching," said Polonsky, who in his 30 years as a Jewish leader, never encountered such blatant anti-Semitism. "It gave me a sick feeling all over again."
Police responded immediately, they snapped photos of the hateful markings for investigation by the North Shore's 120th Precinct graffiti unit and the citywide Bias Crime unit, said Detective Kevin Tierney, community affairs officer of the 120th Precinct.
"This is not going to be tolerated," he said, noting that a report about the second hate crime had already gone to the top brass on the Island and had likely made its way to the desk of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
A police car sat outside the synagogue in the afternoons and evenings in the two weeks following the initial incident, and officers had been asked to step up vigilance in the area, said Tierney. Although patrols were scaled back over the last few days, they will recommence until the vandals are apprehended or other security measures are in place.
"What gets me is, as soon as the car left, the knuckleheads came back," said Tierney, who could not comment on the status of the investigation.
If the perpetrators are caught, they could face hate-crime charges in addition to criminal mischief in the second degree. The charges carry a maximum of 15 years in prison, with the jail time more than doubled because of the abhorrent nature of the graffiti, according to a spokesman for the district attorney's office. [siadvance]