>> I’m not sure it was intentional.
Yea right - and I ams sure the references to ‘boxcars’ and the Brandenburg gates was all just another big coincidence.
Yea right - and I ams sure the references to ‘boxcars’ and the Brandenburg gates was all just another big coincidence.
See 22 Across. That clue's a little shady.
However, as a longtime student of visual perception, I have to say it is not a perfect swastika, because the white squares of the inner cross do not form a straight 90-degree symmetry. I, too, had to study it awhile before the swastika-like image "leapt out"; but once you see a thing amidst a visual maze, it's nearly impossible to unsee it. And everyone on this thread was "directed" to see it immediately by the headline.
Puzzle templates are often recycled. Even though I grew up in a largely Jewish neighborhood and school where we got along as close friends and learned about each others' cultures, I lean towards "unintentional", or mayyyybe "unconscious." But it would be more determinative to know if, or how many times, this template has previously been used.
It may not have been the choice of either the puzzle writer or the puzzle editor to run it during a Jewish holiday; but rather a mindless decision made a week to a month ahead by a "section editor" or other millennial recent college grad from the midwest, unfamiliar with Judaism or its history.
Pretty sure we won't see this template recycled again soon, however.