Antisemitic Hate Speech Scrawled On New UWS Israeli Restaurant

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Miriam Restaurant's staff arrived Thursday morning at their new Upper West Side storefront to find antisemitic graffiti plastered on the front of their outdoor dining shed.

The message, written three times over, read "F*** Jews."

Police were on the scene around 12:20 p.m. in the process of beginning to remove the spray paint. An officer told Patch that they were investigating it as a hate crime, but did not offer more details.

"Seeing that type of graffiti is absolutely disgusting," Kaitlyn Paulk, an employee of One Block UWS, told Patch as she was standing outside of the restaurant. "It is horrible that we still live in a society where that is allowed and people still have those thoughts."

"I decided to come up here this morning to see if I could help get that graffiti off the wall," she added.

Another passerby, who only gave the name Zoey, called the incident "really sad."

"It is really sad to see. It is shocking, but unfortunately not surprising," she said.

The staff did not want to provide a comment on the situation due to the manager not being there when Patch arrived. They did say, though, that they were working to paint over the words.

The graffiti ended with a set of arrows pointed uptown, while it's unclear right now if it was intentional, the Jewish Community Center (JCC) is located on the corner of West 76th Street and Amsterdam — within seeing distance of Miriam.

"Antisemitism is abhorrent and an attack on us all," UWS Council Member Gale Brewer said in a response statement to the graffiti. "This is unacceptable and should be immediately removed."

Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal also took to Twitter to call the graffiti "hateful and disgusting."

"My constituents woke up to hateful & disgusting antisemitic graffiti outside the Upper West Side's new restaurant Miriam on West 74th Street and Amsterdam," Rosenthal wrote. "I encourage our neighbors to support Miriam."

Miriam opened its Upper West Side eatery on Jan. 24. It also has a popular original location in Brooklyn.

Just a day earlier, the Miriam location in Park Slope was burglarized.

The person broke the back window at Miriam on Fifth Avenue and Prospect Place, and ran off with $500 in cash from the register at about 12:50 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the NYPD.

No arrests have been made and an investigation into the robbery remains ongoing, an NYPD spokesperson said later that day.

Reached for comment, an employee at the Brooklyn Miriam would not say more about the burglary.

• Read More: Thief Stole Cash, Broke Window At Park Slope Brunch Spot: NYPD

Antisemitic Incidents on the Rise in 2022

The NYPD hate crimes unit reported 22 hate crimes against Jewish people so far in 2022, compared to eight during the same period last year, according to the UJA-Federation of New York.

Just last week, swastikas and other graffiti were spray-painted on a yeshiva school bus in Williamsburg and a Jewish man was punched while walking down a Bed-Stuy street, according to elected officials and police.

Read More: BK Synagogues Amp Up Security As Antisemitic Incidents Rise

This is a developing story, please check back in for details.

Patch reporters Anna Quinn and Kayla Levy contributed to this report.