Rock thrown at Arizona synagogue smashes front-door window glass
Congregation Chaverim members include Alma Hernandez of the Arizona State Legislature and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, is the state’s junior senator.
A rock thrown at the front door of a synagogue in Tucson, Ariz., broke through the glass window, causing damage that was believed to have occurred overnight on Tuesday and discovered on Wednesday morning.
Congregation Chaverim includes Alma Hernandez, a member of the Arizona State Legislature, and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, is now the state’s junior senator.
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Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011 and spent years recovering from a head injury, took to social media to talk about the incident.
“Yesterday, my synagogue in Tucson was vandalized. It’s heartbreaking to see such a disgusting act in a place where so many are meant to feel safest,” she wrote. “Despite these actions, we will not be shaken. Hate has no place in Arizona.”
Hernandez posted on Twitter: “I’m a complete mess in tears as I write this. I just got off the phone with my rabbi; our synagogue was vandalized, someone [threw] a rock at our glass door. This was NOT an accident! I feel numb. … Send prayers our way.”
Chabad center in Salt Lake City defaced with swastika
“A swastika is not a political statement. A swastika represents one thing and one thing only—death to the Jews,” said Rabbi Avremi Zippel.
A swastika was scratched onto the front-door glass last weekend of Chabad Lubavitch of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Police are searching for a suspect seen in surveillance footage from the building’s security cameras. The assailant is said to be a tall male wearing dark clothing at the time of the vandalism, according to the local newspaper, Deseret News. The incident is being handled as a hate crime, reported Newsweek.
“A swastika is not a political statement. A swastika is an image of hate,” said the Jewish center’s director, Rabbi Avremi Zippel, who also shared a photo of the vandalism on Twitter. “A swastika represents one thing and one thing only—and that is death to the Jews.”
Defacing a Jewish establishment with a swastika “is hateful, despicable and cowardly in every sense of the words,” he said. Surveillance footage showed that the vandalism was “pretty deliberate,” added the rabbi.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) condemned the vandalism on Twitter. He talked about how George Washington welcomed Jews to the United States, saying the first president set an example for how “all Americans” should act. He also wrote that “those who commit acts of vandalism against Jews or their places of worship in Salt Lake City or anywhere else only disgrace their own souls.”
By extending his hand of fellowship to a Rabbi and synagogue, our first president marked the way to be taken by all Americans. Those who commit acts of vandalism against Jews or their places of worship in Salt Lake City or anywhere else only disgrace their own souls. https://t.co/8IJyCzPXKR
— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney)
Zippel told the press on Sunday: “We will rise above hatred. We will never give it the space and the attention that it demands and that it wants. We will … bring light to a world that so much needs it.”