The subway sign incident occurred less than a week after arson incidents commemorating Kristallnacht — which refers to a series of attacks in Nazi Germany and Austria where Jewish homes and businesses were ransacked and torched — by smashing and burning cars in the same neighborhood while vandals scrawled swastikas, “KKK” and other anti-Jewish slurs on sidewalks, benches and vans. Kristallnacht, not coincidentally, means the “Night of Broken Glass.”