Brookline police probing swastika stickers posted in Coolidge Corner area, officials say - The Boston Globe

Brookline police are investigating a series of anti-semitic stickers with swastikas posted in the Coolidge Corner area, authorities said Tuesday, nearly a week after a similar batch of stickers were reported around Harvard Square in Cambridge.

The stickers, found on the northern end of Harvard Street in Brookline were first reported over the weekend, according to Deputy Superintendent Paul Campbell, a spokesperson for Brookline police. Most of them were posted on public light poles and street signs, with three on the window of a private business.

Public works staff removed the stickers from public property, with several taken as evidence, Campbell said in an email.

Harvard Street in the Coolidge Corner area includes “a number” of Jewish and Israeli businesses and residents, according to Brookline Select Board chair Bernard Greene.

Greene said that the incident, which was first reported by Brookline News, is under investigation by local law enforcement. He added that it remains to be seen whether the stickers were posted by Brookline residents or an outside group.

“To see a swastika put somewhere — especially within a Jewish community or on the walls of a Jewish institution — that is out of the ordinary, and we should be alarmed,” he said. “But we also should be careful and try to understand what is really going on.”

Photos of the stickers shared by Brookline police show an Israeli flag with the Star of David replaced with a swastika, along with the phrase “Stop Funding Israeli Terrorism.” Identical stickers were found around Harvard Square last week, including one near the building that houses Harvard Hillel, the largest Jewish center at Harvard University, officials said.

Cambridge police spokesperson Robert Goulston declined to comment on the Coolidge Corner stickers, but noted that Cambridge investigators would cooperate if they determined any “potential connection.”

Brookline police are “well aware” of similar incidents, Campbell said.

Since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, incendiary rhetoric has exploded in the United States, with violent threats made against Jews and Palestinians alike. But in Brookline, the conversation has for the most part remained “thoughtful and mature,” Greene said — even at heated moments like a contentious debate over a ceasefire resolution earlier this year.

The current stickers are far outside that norm, he stressed.

Sara Colb, deputy director of the Anti-Defamation League of New England, said in an interview that it’s important to not “blur the line” between “reasonable debate” around the conflict in Israel, and what she described as “targeted hate.”

“We’re talking here about stickers containing a swastika that were placed outside of Jewish businesses and synagogues,” she said. “This is not about protest of the war in Gaza.”

Greene said the stickers were found outside several locations, including a local bagel shop and the Florida Ruffin Ridley School. They were also found near Brookline synagogues and other Jewish institutions, according to a post on X, formerly Twitter, from State Representative Tommy Vitolo.

“Simply stated, these acts of antisemitism are disgusting and unacceptable,” Vitolo wrote. “People of all backgrounds should stand up and reject this bigotry regardless of their religion, national origin, political beliefs, or views on current events in the Middle East.”

Camilo Fonseca can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.