A political event hosted by “Broad City” star Ilana Glazer at a New York synagogue was canceled Thursday night after someone vandalized the temple with anti-Semitic slurs, TheWrap has confirmed.
A custodian at Union Temple in Brooklyn Heights told the New York Post that several examples of hateful graffiti were found, including “Kill all Jews” written on one door.
Glazer was set to interview New York state senate candidates Andrew Gounardes and Jim Gaughran alongside journalist Amy Goodman. The event was set for 8:30 p.m., but was canceled about a half hour before it began, according to a rep for Union Temple.
“Last night, we were ready to generate stories and conversations and turn them into action. We had beautiful, bright people ready to canvas– knock on doors for the local elections– and help candidates who stand up for human rights win,” Glazer said in a statement to TheWrap.
“Then, the Generator community experienced, together, how white supremacy, anti-Semitism and racism silences human rights politics and halts progress,” Glazer continued, while referencing the Generator Collective, a group aiming to “humanize policy” through storytelling. “But they won’t stop us from communicating, canvassing, and voting. We will continue to learn, organize, and act and make this country as safe for as many people as possible.”
.@broadcity star and co-creator Ilana Glazer (@ilazer) decided to cancel an event with Amy Goodman at a Brooklyn synagogue Thursday night after the discovery of anti-Semitic messages on the walls: "I can't put these 200 people who came to listen in a safe space… in that danger" pic.twitter.com/WY0RKR3Gcq
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) November 2, 2018
Attendee Kathryn Gonzalez said on Facebook Thursday night: “[Glazer] didn’t feel comfortable ushering 200 people into the enclosed space.”
Gounardes, in a statement to TheWrap, said the event’s cancellation was “a painful reminder that anti-Semitism and prejudice are alive and well in our own community.”
The slurs are being investigated as a hate crime by New York City police.
The event’s shutdown comes less than a week after 11 people were murdered, along with several others that were injured, during a shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The Anti-Defamation League called it the “deadliest attack” on American Jews in the nation’s history.
It also comes at a time of rising anti-Semitic attacks in New York City.
“Contrary to what are surely the prevailing assumptions, anti-Semitic incidents have constituted half of all hate crimes in New York this year, according to the Police Department,” The New York Times noted on Wednesday. “To put that figure in context, there have been four times as many crimes motivated by bias against Jews — 142 in all — as there have against blacks. Hate crimes against Jews have outnumbered hate crimes targeted at transgender people by a factor of 20.”