Chabad Tucson synagogue vandalized with antisemitic slogans

Tucson police have launched an investigation after antisemitic graffiti was discovered this week on the walls of a historic synagogue.

Members of Chabad Tucson–Young Israel arrived for morning prayers around 8:30 AM on Tuesday to find purple spray-painted messages reading “End Apartheid” and “Abolish Israel” directly beneath the building’s Star of David emblem.

“As we’re driving in, we see this very hurtful graffiti on our exterior wall,” Associate Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin told local 13 News. “It made the prayer very different following that.”

The building, originally built in 1948 as Congregation Young Israel, holds historical significance as Arizona’s first Orthodox Jewish synagogue before its eventual merger with Chabad Tucson. By late afternoon, nearly two dozen volunteers had gathered with paint supplies to cover the graffiti. Despite the shock and hurt caused by the act of vandalism, Rabbi Ceitlin emphasized the community’s commitment to respond with resilience and positivity.

“We’re involving their mind, their heart, their hands, their feet; everything is involved in trying to do better and make this world a better place,” he said.

Local Jewish leaders noted that this incident is part of a troubling trend. Last November, vandals struck Catalina twice in less than a week, defacing mailboxes on Golder Ranch Road and later spray-painting backward swastikas, the word “Jews,” and Donald Trump’s name on a street sign along Cloud Nine Drive.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents in the United States have risen 23% since October 7, 2023, the day Hamas launched its deadly massacre against Israel, killing over 1,200 innocent civilians.