The Combat Antisemitism Movement reported on November 3 that four Jewish school buses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, had been spray-painted with swastikas, “F*ck Israel,” and “Free Palestine” on November 2, 2026. CAM said the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force was investigating and credited local account @WMSBG for the photographs. The target, CAM wrote, was Jewish children.
“This is antisemitism targeting Jewish children,” CAM wrote.
The Jerusalem Post reported the same attack. Photos showed buses covered with slogans including “F*** Israel,” “USA first,” and “Free Palestine.” The NYPD’s 90th Precinct, the Hate Crime Task Force, and Williamsburg Shomrim were working to find those responsible. Local outlet Williamsburg 365, cited by the Post, said the buses belonged to the Satmar and Klausenburg Hassidic sects and to Tiferes Yisroel.
Officials name it
City Council member Lincoln Restler, quoted by the Post, said, “Anti-Semitic graffiti on our community’s school buses is truly obscene,” and that “the decade-long rise in anti-Semitic incidents must be stopped.” Assemblyman Kalman Yeger wrote, “Globalize the Intifada landed in Williamsburg.” Attorney-General Letitia James called the act “despicable.” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the vandalism targeting school buses in South Williamsburg was “abhorrent” and that “every New Yorker, especially our children, deserves to live free of such hatred.” Governor Kathy Hochul said, “As a mother and grandmother, it sickens me to think of children arriving at school to find their buses defaced with swastikas and hateful antisemitic messages.”
Swastikas on the school run
Williamsburg’s Hassidic buses are not a political office and not a battlefield. They carry children to yeshiva. Spray-painting Nazi symbols and “Free Palestine” on those vehicles is the merger CAM named: classical Jew-hatred and the anti-Israel street, aimed at minors on the way to school. The Post’s official quotes show New York’s political class recognized the act as antisemitism. Recognition is not the same as deterrence. Until someone is arrested, the message on those buses stands in public: Jewish children in a Western city can be marked on their way to class.