Menorah fired at Dartmouth with bullets, in the latest Hanukkah attack

A public menorah at Dartmouth College was shot dead, in the latest antisemitic incident during the Hanukkah holiday.

Rabbi Moshe Gray, who runs the Chabad center on campus with his wife Chani, said he found the damage on Wednesday night, as he prepared to turn on the menorah’s electric lights for the seventh holiday night . Holes from a pellet gun had broken seven of the nine menorah lights.

He says he knew it was a targeted attack on the menorah, which stands in a prime location on the campus, as a nearby Christmas tree was left unharmed.

“Nothing like this has ever happened,” in the couple’s 17 years on campus, he told the Jewish Telegraph Association on Thursday. “Dartmouth is very quiet when it comes to things like this.” It was shocking to realize that someone had, for some reason, burned the menorah. “

About 400 are among Dartmouth’s total student body of 4000, according to the school’s Hillel.

In a letter to the school community, Dartmouth President Philip J. Hanlon called vandalism “a complaint to all.”

“To the Jewish members of our community, at Dartmouth and beyond, we stand with you in anger and sadness at this infamous act, which is much more than vandalism or alcohol, because it seeks to diminish the rich Jewish culture and history. people, ”he wrote.

This is the latest in a series of anti-Semitic events during this Hanukkah. At the menorah light of Chabad in Kentucky, someone shouting anti-Semitic slugs from a car ran over a man’s leg. The website of the Long Island Jewish High School was destroyed and destroyed by non-Nazis. Menorah was also bandaged in California.

Gray said he is encouraged by the response from the Dartmouth community. More than 100 people showed up either virtually or in person despite heavy snow to light up the menorah of the campus on Thursday night. (The menorah can be lit with real fire, an action he has in spite of the attack.) And Gray thought about printing t-shirts for Chabad to read, “When they get dark, we’ll the light. “

“This is what we do in Chabad,” he said. “We have dedicated our lives to the spread of Judaism and the spread of kindness.”