LEHI, Utah — Local Jewish leaders are calling for vigilance following two local acts of vandalism at Jewish spaces.
Both came in the space of a few weeks last month: first at Temple Har Shalom in Park City over Labor Day weekend and then at the Chabad of Utah County in Lehi.
A violation of your space can feel pretty jarring, especially when you've worked so hard to create it.
“When we first got started, every single person, without fail, would look at us and go ‘There are other Jews in Utah County?’” said Rabbi Chaim Zippel.
Zippel and his wife looked to change those perspectives when they created the Chabad of Utah County in 2022.
“People just love it,” Zippel said. “They love being there for one another. They love having a place to experience the culture.”
Often, those places were simply found wherever someone was kind enough to open their doors for an event.
“We never had a designated location,” said Zippel.
Synagogue sign vandalized, rattling Park City's tight-knit Jewish community:
But that also changed this past summer, when they leased an office to serve as their first headquarters.
“No kitchen yet, no event space,” Zippel said, noting the small size of the space just off I-15 in the Traverse Mountain area. “Hopefully one day, when the funding permits. But for now, this is it, you see it.”
He added that they also get to share a conference room with others in the building, so they can hold some classes there. It marked an important milestone for his community of a couple hundred as they look to keep growing.
But if you stop by the office currently, you’ll find the door is boarded up because he says someone decided to break in.
Zippel was blissfully unaware on the night of September 26th, as he celebrated the holiday of Sukkot.
“One of the beauties of Judaism is that my reaction was pretty delayed,” said Zippel. “On Jewish holidays and Shabbat every Saturday, we are electronic-free.”
But a day later, the messages came flooding in.
“There’s certainly a feeling of shock, and a feeling where you’ve been violated to a certain extent,” Zippel said.
Zippel said they first thought it could be a robbery, but they then realized nothing was taken from the office.
“An office of a Jewish institution was vandalized, where no other offices to the left or right were vandalized,” said Ron Zamir, who serves as vice president of the United Jewish Federation of Utah. “For us, it just brings to the fore that the lives of Jews in Utah have changed dramatically since 2023.”
Zamir says their organization has seen hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into security at institutions around the state since then, and so they’re calling for people to be vigilant.
“When you hear people rejoicing in events done against Jewish institutions, take notice, talk, notify - don’t be a bystander,” Zamir said.
Rabbi Zippel says security is critical - but he takes comfort in the community that’s surrounded them since that day.
“We are fortunate to live in what I call the least anti-Semitic place in the world,” said Zippel. “We feel so blessed.”
So he wants them to drown out the darkness of this crime by spreading more light.
“You can’t undo an action that someone else did,” Zippel said. “But what you can do is be the person to pay it forward with extra kindness, with extra care, by being a good neighbor.”
FOX 13 News reached out to Lehi officials for an update on the investigation, but hasn’t heard back.