Police in Illinois want to know who posted swastika stickers on the door to the Chicago Loop Synagogue then smashed its windows early Saturday, according to a report by The Chicago Tribune.
Officials describe the perp as a white male wearing dark clothing and a dark head mask, and driving a dark SUV, which they suggest could be a Toyota Highlander. They say he used some metal object to smash the front glass windows. This is being investigated as a hate crime.
“I was stunned,” synagogue president Lee Zoldan said at a Sunday press conference. “You don’t expect something like this … this has never happened to us. I was trying to process it.”
She said it was the first time her synagogue had been targeted in an apparent hate crime since its founding in 1959.
Zoldan also announced a $3,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. Local activist Raul Montes Jr. and the Anti-Defamation League are funding it.
“This is blatantly anti-Semitic and totally beyond comprehension and will not be tolerated,” Montes said on Sunday, according to the Tribune. “This is a hate crime. This should not have occurred nowhere.”