Goldman’s Office Vandalized Again by Anti-Israel Protestor 

By Reuvain Borchardt

BROOKLYN — The Brooklyn district office of U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) was vandalized Monday by an anti-Israel protestor for the second time since the latest Gaza war began.

Around 12:30 p.m. Monday, several demonstrators showed up to Goldman’s office on 9th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in Park Slope, while staff were in the office. One of the demonstrators, whose face was obscured by a mask, sprayed red wax on the office’s window and door, and on the sidewalk. The vandal held up, then left behind, a cardboard sign with red wax reading, “The blood of my family is on your … hands.” The vandal fled on a skateboard.

While the demonstrators and the vandal did not state which group they were from, an anti-Israel group calling itself “NY10 Neighbors – Solidarity With Palestine” had posted a message on social media calling for its members to show up outside Goldman’s Office from 12:30 — 2:00 p.m. “to protest the ongoing massacre in Rafah.”

In a statement to Hamodia, Goldman’s communications director, Madison Andrus, said, “The Congressman welcomes peaceful feedback and engagement from all of his constituents, but there is no place for vandalism in our democracy. Targeting, harassing, and threatening the young staff of a Jewish elected official at a time of record antisemitic violence is incredibly dangerous, deeply troubling, and counterproductive.”

The Israeli military is reportedly beginning what is expected to be a major operation in Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip. Much of Hamas’s capabilities and tunnel network have been destroyed in other parts of Gaza.

Monday’s incident came a day after Israel announced it has rescued two of the remaining captives in a raid in Rafah.

The “NY10 Neighbors” group, which has 84 Twitter followers and describes itself as a “Multiracial and multi-faith constituents of Congressional District 10 calling for a #CeasefireNow,” has organized letter-writing campaigns and protests of Goldman’s pro-Israel stance.

This is the second time that Goldman — whose 10th Congressional District includes all of Lower Manhattan, and Brooklyn neighborhoods including Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill and Boro Park — has had his office vandalized by anti-Israel protestors. 

The first was in November, when red graffiti with the words “Free Palestine,” “Let Gaza Live,” and “Blood on Ur Hands” was scrawled overnight on the outside of his office and the sidewalk, as well as several locations on the same block. No one has been arrested in that case.

That occurred shortly after Goldman participated in the “March for Israel” rally on the National Mall that drew nearly 300,000 Israel supporters, and after he was one of only 22 Democrats to join nearly all Republicans in the House who voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a Palestinian American who has promoted the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which Israel-supporters say is a call to genocide.

Goldman was in Israel for a family bar mitzvah on October 7, the day Hamas launched the war by entering southern Israel and killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians and many in barbaric fashion; injuring scores more; and taking approximately 240 hostage. Over 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s subsequent incursion into Gaza to root out Hamas, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas terrorists, and Israel says Hamas is to blame for the deaths of the Palestinian civilians it uses as human shields.

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rborchardt@hamodia.com