A restaurant on New York’s Upper West Side was defaced by vandals, who scrawled anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls, The New York Post reported Friday.
“It was like someone came in and went wild. Vandalism is one thing, but it was a total defacement. They urinated everywhere,” said David Ruggerio, 50, owner of Lansky’s Old World Deli on Columbus Avenue.
While the restaurant is not kosher nor owned by a Jew, it features a combination of Jewish deli favorites, including matzo ball soup and chopped liver, which may have prompted the vandals to resort to anti-Semitic slurs.
“They smashed all the computers, smashed phones, broke every plate in the place, sliced every banquette,” Ruggerio said.
He said the perpetrators caused about $200,000 in damage and wrote anti-Semitic slurs on the walls, The Post reported.
“I’m an Italian-American from Brooklyn, but if I was Jewish, I’d be deeply offended,” he said.
There were “some words, some symbols — I can’t tell you what they were. I don’t want this to become inflamed. I immediately covered them up.”
Police are investigating whether the perpetrator was a disgruntled ex-employee.
According to the report, about two weeks ago, an ex-worker, together with a female companion, broke into the deli, slept there overnight, cooked themselves breakfast in the morning, and similarly scrawled offensive messages on the premises.