Swastika Found Outside Upper East Side's 2nd Avenue Deli: Report

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A disturbing Nazi symbol was found scrawled on the doorframe of an iconic Upper East Side Jewish deli, according to reports.

“I learned a long time ago that I don’t question the motives of anti-Semites and vicious people,” the owner of the 2nd Avenue Deli, Jack Lebewohl, told the Daily News. “I don’t have to give them an excuse to attack Jews. They will do so.”

A tenant of the East 75th Street and First Avenue building alerted Lebewohl after finding a swastika etched into the doorframe of the building on Tuesday.

"Thank you for reminding us that we are on the right side of history," the deli wrote in an Instagram post showing the disturbing symbol.

Lebewohl, 75, was born in a displaced persons camp in Italy in 1948 and is the son and brother of Holocaust survivors, according to the Daily News, and his brother, Abe, first opened the Deli in the East Village in 1954.

This latest act of antisemitism, Lebewohl told the Daily News, probably was not related to the ongoing war, which has triggered a series of other antisemitic and islamophobic attacks across the country in recent weeks.

“It’s always been there and now they’re finding an excuse to talk,” he told the Daily News. “This anti-Semite was an anti-Semite a month ago, or two months ago.

“I don’t care if he’s an anti-Semite,” Lebewohl explained to the Daily News. “I just want to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Since the most recent violence broke out, the deli has shared messages of support for Israel, highlighting the human cost of the violence. On Friday, the deli held a fundraiser where both the Upper East Side and East 33rd Street locations donated 100 percent of their proceeds for the day to United Hatzalah.

“I would never take pleasure, God forbid, in the deaths of Palestinian civilians,” Lebewohl said to the New York Post. “But there’s a big difference between saying that all civilians should be protected when you have a group of people that are purposely killing, mutilating, slaughtering civilians."

According to reports, no arrests have been made.

“I feel like it’s a personal thing and it should never happen in the world and it should never happen in a city like New York," Lebewohl said to the News.