Jeff Kelman News Today

Swastika is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, representing peace and good fortune

In much of the world, the swastika is often equated to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany – a symbol of hate that evokes the trauma of the Holocaust and the horrors

The symbol itself dates back to prehistoric times. The word swastika has Sanskrit roots and means the mark of well being

A movement to redefine and save the swastika in Asian religious and Native American communities is growing. But, the symbol is connected to Hitler, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Can a symbol of bad be brought back to an earlier representation of good?

Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down. “My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a phy...

For decades, the swastika has been the ultimate symbol of the nazis. But some Asian religions want to reclaim the shape as a part of their faiths.

Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down. “My decoration said ‘Happy Diwa...

The symbol itself dates back to prehistoric times, the word 'swastika' has Sanskrit roots and means 'the mark of well being'

In the West, the swastika is often equated to Adolf Hitlers "hakenkreuz" or the hooked cross -- a symbol of hate that evokes the trauma of the Holocaust and the horrors of Nazi Germany. Over the past decade, as the Asian diaspora grew in North America, calls to reclaim the swastika as a sacred symbol became louder. These minority faith communities are being joined by Native Americans whose ancestors used it in healing rituals.

As Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism grow in North America, so too have calls to reclaim an emblem that for millennia has been an icon of well-being, not hate