NEW YORK, NEW YORK, November 10, 2020 (NY Post): A major New York Jewish organization co-hosted an event in New York this week to debate a subject that most in the city assume has long been settled — whether the swastika is good or bad. While the notorious hooked-cross symbol has long been associated with the evil of Nazism and hate, it has for even longer been revered by Hindus and Buddhists, who argued Monday that swastika was misused by Hitler and its image should be rehabilitated. “This is the most important symbol in Asia. The swastika is a noble symbol. It’s a sacred symbol,” said T.K. Nakagaki, president of the HEIWA Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, during the zoom conference Monday night, which was co-sponsored by Jewish Community Relations Council of NY and various Hindu and Buddhist groups.
“Education doesn’t teach what the swastika means. Hitler clearly stole the symbol from the East,” Nakagaki said at the event, entitled “The Swastika in American, Jewish and Asian Cultures.” In both Hindu and Buddhist cultures, swastikas are sacred symbols carved into temples and used for ceremonies. The swastika in Hindu culture dates back more than 5,000 years and is used “to express luck and happiness during ceremonial events,” said panelist Ravi Vaidyanaat Sivachariar, director of religious studies for the Flushing, Queens-based Hindu Temple Society of North America. Vaidyanaat said people from Western cultures have to be taught to understand and respect how important the swastika is to Eastern cultures — way before Adolf Hitler misappropriated it for evil purposes.
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