An image of the fire used on a GoFundMe page for the center. Image by Screenshot: GoFundMe

By David Ian Klein September 2, 2020

Jewish students at the University of Delaware whose Chabad house went up in flames have made their fundraising and rebuilding goals more ambitious after an initial success.

In less than a week, their GoFundMe raised more than $500,000 to rebuild what they called the “little blue house,” which was destroyed in a possible act of arson, according to the local fire department.

The fire happened around 11 p.m. on August 25. According to the initial GoFundMe plea, it caused $250,000 worth of damage. Luckily, no one was in the structure at the time, as Rabbi Avremel Vogel and his family had moved out last year and only used it to host student functions.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“It’s been incredibly uplifting, after you go through something like that, to know that this isn’t something we have to rebuild with our own hands by ourselves right now,” Vogel told the Forward. “We have so much support from everyone on the local level, whether its people in local government or other faith-based communities and specifically the Jewish community.”

Now that the students know how much support they are getting, they have decided to try to not just repair the house, but to build a one that’s bigger. The new funding goal is $1 million.

“There is no doubt in our mind that the best way forward is to not only rebuild the space that once was, but rather to create a new one that is even better, grander, and larger with even more space to host even more students, thereby bringing even more light to this world than ever before,” said an update on the GoFundMe page.

Vice president Joe Biden, an Alumnus of the University of Delaware, called the act “deeply disturbing”

“With anti-Semitism on the rise across the country, we all have a moral obligation to speak out and give hate no safe harbor,” he said in a tweet.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount