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Does This Library Carrel Really Look Like a Swastika?
February 4, 2008

Four months after a new library opened in West Hempstead, NY, home to a significant Orthodox Jewish population, some residents say that the design of some study desks too closely resemble a swastika. Some complaints made it into the Saturday edition of Newsday, which pointed out that three library board members are Orthodox Jews themselves, and hadn’t been alarmed when signing off on the carrels. 

Indeed, while the Nazi swastika (below), based on an ancient Indian symbol, has four arms that turn right, the arms on these desks turn to the left, not right. (The Indian swastika could go both ways.) Library board president Ralph Reissman, one of the Orthodox Jews on the board, told Newsday that, while the designer was willing to modify the desk, he said now, since taking the arms off would defeat the goal of privacy.

Library director Regina Mascia suggested to LJ that the article overstated the concern and said that the desks, purchased from Brodart and in use elsewhere around the country, were hardly driving people away: “We didn’t mean to hurt anybody. And it’s being used every single day. And after the initial few complaints, we haven’t heard anything about it.”

Posted by Norman Oder on February 4, 2008 | Comments (0)