Durham Chabad Center Defaced with Swastika

Rabbi Tzali Borenstein arrived at prayer services last weekend to the last thing he ever expected to find in this community.

A swastika had been scrawled on the sign for Chabad Jewish Centre of Durham, located at 1121 Dundas St. E. in Whitby.

“It’s a very difficult thing to see,” says Rabbi Borenstein, who opened the centre upon moving to the region with his family from New York in 2010.

After discovering the cruel act on the morning of Dec. 21 — he believes it was done overnight on either Thursday or Friday — the rabbi’s first instinct was to rub it out.

“I figured thank God most people are so good in this community we’ve never had an issue before so I’m like OK, I’ll try to cover it up,” he says.

Rabbi Borenstein tried scrubbing the sign but it proved to be a difficult task with the amount of ice on it, and visitors of the centre started to take notice.

“Some of them were asking, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ We had one person start to speak about how many members of their family they lost in the Holocaust … people obviously get very emotional when they see this.

“There were different reactions but everyone definitely had a reaction to seeing it.”

Instead of dwelling on the negativity of the situation, Rabbi Borenstein says he took the opportunity during service that day to discuss positive solutions.

“I think the message we have to send out is to add extra light or extra good deeds to take away from some person trying to bring darkness and sadness to people.”

Chabad of Durham opened its doors to the public as a warming centre over the past week, offering food and hot drinks to local families facing power outages following the ice storm.

“Goodness and kindness overcomes any type of hate … you could let the emotion paralyze you or you could do an extra good deed to counteract it,” says Rabbi Borenstein.

“That’s where people in the community have been taking it, which is really amazing and a testament to the community.”