Last week, a group of vandals targeted the Chabad House at San Diego State University (SDSU) and broke one of the branches of its free-standing menorah, which Jews use to celebrate Hanukkah and which Chabad frequently uses as a symbol.
In December, SDSU was ranked number 19 in Algemeiner’s list of the top 40 worst “worst college campuses for Jewish students in the nation.”
According to local ABC News station 10News, Jewish leaders have offered the culprits the opportunity to come forward to apologize ad claim responsibility for their actions. They have reportedly stated they will not press charges if that happens.
Two residents reportedly noticed the vandals doing pull-ups off the branch of the Menorah at the Chabad House on Montezuma Road around 2 a.m. on March 24. The branch was unable to withstand the weight and cracked. Temporary screws are now holding up the menorah’s metal branch.
10News notes that some residents were able to record the group of men running into a white Toyota Tacoma, before they drove off. The Chabad rabbi, Chalom Boudjnah, said that as the men ran off, one of them yelled, “The Jews are coming. Let’s go!”
The menorah incident is nothing new for SDSU’s Jewish population. According to 10News, that same menorah has been used as gym equipment on three separate occasions.
SDSU is no stranger to anti-Israel sentiment.
Last April, students bullied and trapped SDSU’s Jewish President Elliot Hirshman in a police vehicle and accused him of not doing enough to protect Muslim students on campus who were named in a poster as supporters of terrorism.
SDSU has also been featured in a new documentary, Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus, which aims to expose what it calls the left’s coalition with radical Islamic and antisemitic groups on college campuses throughout the United States, working together to marginalize pro-Israel students.