(NewsInsights.org) – In the week before Thanksgiving, someone attacked the small house in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The building served as a community center, a place where people could gather to observe their faith, and a beacon of light and hope — one or more vandals attacked the local Chabad. Using spray paint, someone marked swastikas and other hate symbols on walls and Hannukah decorations on November 17. After weeks of searching, authorities have arrested someone for the antisemitic act.
Video surveillance caught images of the man who spray-painted the images on the Jewish community center’s building and decorations. Yet, Dave Boysen, Kalamazoo’s public safety chief, explained he had trouble identifying Jaifeng Chen, apparently a Chinese national, because he had so few ties to the town. Boysen said the suspect had only spent about a month in Kalamazoo, and “He’s kind of been all over the country,” according to CBS affiliate WWMT Channel 3.
Authorities captured Chen in Arizona and notified Boysen. Federal law enforcement officials took him into custody on an unrelated and undisclosed charge on November 27. The Kalamazoo chief said he would forward the results of his investigations to the federal prosecutors once he’s completed it.
Rabbi Mordechai Haller noted that neighbors and the community came together to stand against the act and help clean up the vandalism. “A little bit of light pushes away a lot of darkness,” he said, characterizing the act as darkness. “[T]here’s a lot of darkness in the world,” the rabbi stated, but he reminded people to start fighting with light.
Haller said that doing positive things, like working with neighbors to remediate damage from acts of darkness and building community, creates the light that pushes the darkness of hate away. “[T]he light prevails.” His wife, Dobroshe Haller, thanked the community for their “outpouring of love and support” after the shocking event.
According to an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report issued Monday, December 11, antisemitic incidents have increased by 337% between October 7, the date of the Hamas attack on Israel, and December 7. ADL CEO Jonathon Greenblatt said that since the start of the war, “This terrifying pattern of antisemitic attacks has been relentless.”
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