Pittsfield, MA - Swastika Carved Into School Slide

Pittsfield, MA - Police are investigating the carving of a swastika into a playground slide at Sinai Academy of the Berkshires, a Jewish school on South Street.
The symbol, "3A2," surrounded by a circle, believed to mean, "3anarchy2," also was inscribed, according to school authorities.

The incident prompted the school's president, to write a letter to the parents and community about their concerns over the anti-Semitism. "While this deplorable occurrence is a rarity for Sinai," they wrote, "we know from painful experience that it takes only one incident of anti-Semitism to affect an entire community. ... We condemn in the strongest terms the anti-Semitic vandalism at Sinai and elsewhere. Such hate has no place here in the Berkshires and runs counter to our community's values of acceptance and respect for differences."

The school leaders also pointed to the latest statistics, that in 2004 and 2005, 13 percent of anti-Semitic graffiti occurred on school property in eight states with the highest totals of anti-Semitic acts.