Chicago synagogue vandalized

A Chicago synagogue was targeted by an anti-Semitic hate crime, the first time since its establishment in 1959.

A vandal broke a window and put several swastika stickers on the front door of the Loop Synagogue in downtown Chicago on Saturday.

This was the first time that the synagogue was the target of a hate crime since opening its doors in 1959.

“I was stunned,” synagogue president Lee Zoldan said at a Sunday news conference in which she announced rewards totaling $3,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the suspect.

“You don’t expect something like this … this has never happened to us. I was trying to process it,” she stated, according to the Chicago Tribune.

A surveillance camera captured video of a man parking a dark-colored SUV in front of the building before briskly walking up to it, placing something on the door and smashing a window.

The man, wearing a head mask or hood, retrieved a metal object from his pocket before swinging twice at the window. He ran back to his car and drove away.

The person was described as a white male wearing dark clothes and a dark head mask, police said.

Police collected license plate information and are processing some fingerprints from the scene, the Tribune reported.

“This is blatantly anti-Semitic and totally beyond comprehension and will not be tolerated,” community activist Raul Montes Jr. said Sunday, standing in front of a dozen congregants and supporters. “This is a hate crime. This should not have occurred nowhere.”

By: World Israel News Staff