A 100-square-meter swastika cut into a cornfield in nearby Washington Township was discovered Friday by state police flying over the area on a routine patrol.
There have been no arrests made in connection with the incident, but investigators told NBC 10 Philadelphia that the pattern was cut by hand.
The symbol lies just off Hankins Road, the location of two similar incidents in July 1998 and June 1999, and is only visible from the air. The hate message was discovered on the eve of Yom Kippur, the end of the Jewish high holy days.
"Though it may still come as a shock, we are not immune to hatred in our own backyard," Matthew Kandel '09, president of the Center for Jewish Life's student board, said in an email.
According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), New Jersey was the state with the second-highest number of anti-Semitic events in 2006, with 244 incidents of harassment or vandalism, which was exceeded only by New York. The ADL also found that New Jersey saw the highest number of vandalism cases last year.
"This incident is a sorry reminder that bigotry does not disappear just because a population is wealthier or better educated, as one might expect in a state like New Jersey," Kandel said.
Several swastikas have appeared on campus over the years, most recently in a chalkboard sketch depicting a "Jewish library" being attacked by a bomb, found in Bloomberg Hall in March. In December 2004, a swastika was found on a dry erase board in a hallway of Dod Hall.
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