Letters vandalized on Chabad House sign

Two Hebrew characters were reported missing from the Chabad House’s main sign Sunday in the most recent case of vandalism at the Jewish Student Center.

Chabad director Rabbi Yehoshua Chincholker said he noticed the two letters had been “torn away violently” from the right side of the building’s front wall.

The large letters had been fixed to the wall to form a sign.

“It’s a big sign and an easy target,” Chincholker said. “This isn’t the first time it’s happened, but I’m still shocked.”

Chincholker reported the letters missing at about 4:30 p.m. Sunday and filed a police report, Lt. Bill Parker of the Bloomington Police Department said Tuesday.

One character was soon recovered lying nearby, but the other remains missing.

Parker said the theft could have occurred anytime in the past two weeks, as Chabad’s staff do not deliberately check the sign every day to see if it has been vandalized.

While the vandalism has not been characterized as a hate crime, Chincholker said he does believe Chabad House was specifically targeted.

“They know exactly what they did and what building they did it to,” he said. “No other churches are being vandalized. We are being picked on.”

The Chabad House is no stranger to vandalism or hate crimes. Just
before Hanukkah 2010, a rock thrown through the center’s back window began a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in Bloomington.

Hebrew texts were urinated on in the Herman B Wells Library, a rock was thrown through a back kitchen window of the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center and a rock was thrown at the staff directory glass display case for the Robert A. and Sandra B. Borns Jewish Studies Program in Goodbody Hall.

Before the Jewish holiday’s end, a second rock was thrown at Chabad, this time through a window of the center’s upstairs apartment.

In October 2007, a beer bottle smashed through a window of the Chabad House and, a few weeks later, the word “Jewish” was stripped from the building’s front.

Hate crime or not, Chincholker said the most recent incident is testing his patience and nerves after enduring years of vandalism.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he said. “This should not happen, not in Bloomington. But it keeps happening, again and again.”