A new Israeli restaurant in Manhattan’s Upper West Side was found spray-painted with antisemitic graffiti as workers arrived on Thursday.

The message of the vandal, written thrice on the facade of Miriam restaurant, was simple: “F*** Jews.”

Police were at the scene of the vandalism Thursday afternoon and began the process of removing the paint, as well as initiating a hate crime investigation.

The graffiti ended with arrows pointing to uptown Manhattan, though it isn’t yet known if it was intentional. The Jewish Community Center (JCC) sits at the corner West 76th Street and Amsterdam, just a short walk from the restaurant.

“Seeing that type of graffiti is absolutely disgusting,” an employee of a nearby business told Patch. “It is horrible that we still live in a society where that is allowed and people still have those thoughts.”

The NYPD’s hate crimes unit reported 22 hate crimes against Jews so far in 2022, compared to 8 antisemitic hate crimes at this point last year in New York City – a shocking 175% increase.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)