Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Anti-Semitic Vandalism Rocks San Diego Campus

As vandals target Jewish cemeteries and community centers, Jews at the University of San Diego have also been on the receiving end of hate crimes, with numerous swastikas discovered on campus over the past month.

“Defacing our facilities with this deplorable symbol is hateful and reprehensible, and the incidents are being investigated,” the university’s dean of students, Donald Godwin wrote in an e-mail last month after five swastikas were discovered at different sites across campus. “We are keenly aware and sensitive to the historical and present-day incidents against our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

And that’s not all, with Jewish studies professor Shai Cherry reporting that after the November election, someone left a pile of feces outside his office, something that he think that was targeted at him because he is Jewish.

“I have never been faced with that kind of explicit anti-Semitism,” Cherry, an ordained rabbi, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “These are cowardly acts,” he added. “If somebody wanted to confront me, this wouldn’t be how they would do it.”

Campus police are investigating the incident, according to the administration.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.