[This article appeared in the Charlotte Observer Friday, October 16th. ]

I wish I had looked out the window.

But I was busy teaching my students – students who had been studying the long and terrible history of anti-Semitism all semester.

Had the blinds been pulled up, had we looked out our windows, we would have seen that this history has not ended. We are living with it still.

Just outside the windows of my classroom, the succah belonging to UNC Charlotte’s Hillel, our campus Jewish Student organization, tottered on its poles as if it had been battered and struck.

Which, in fact, it had.

Over fall break, some person or persons had stolen the succah’s bamboo coverings. The same malevolent souls had deliberately bent and ruined the frame of the succah beyond repair.

The large sign decorated with a Star of David and with Hillel’s name was defaced with a small, but legible comment: “F.U.”

The campus police have determined that the succah was damaged purposefully and have declared it a hate crime, in part because other Hillel signage on campus has been defaced.

For two years I functioned as UNC Charlotte Hillel’s director. I know first hand how hard these students work with little in the way of resources. Their hope? To cultivate and nurture Jewish life and to offer educational programs so that all students can learn about the heritage, traditions, customs and rich diversity of Jewish life.

These students are working in the trenches. UNCC has no Hillel House. Students do not attend UNCC because of all it offers the Jewish community – they go to UNC Chapel Hill for such things. Although UNC boasts a Judaic Studies minor and a respected faculty that includes nationally known Judaic scholar John Reeves, our efforts to encourage Jewish learning, Jewish culture and Jewish community go largely unnoticed by those eager to support those same things at other universities in this state.

These students are doing lonely work with great heart and great courage.

I wish I had looked out the window that day to point out to my own students how much work has yet to be done to make Jews – in fact to make any minority – safe from hate crimes. No one deserves to have the emblems of their heritage destroyed and defaced. No one in this country should fear attack for their religion, their skin color, their sexual orientation.

What do I now wish I could see at the heart of our campus, looking out from the window of my classroom?

Where the succah stood, another one – new and proud. Succot may be over; the symbol of that fragile booth which sheltered the Israelites can still stand as a reminder that everyone deserves protection from hate.

I wish that quadrangle, the one surrounding Belk’s tower, were filled with students protesting this terrible act of viciousness.

Can UNCC’s student organizations band together to demonstrate for tolerance and diversity?

Can Charlotte’s Jewish community take note of the resources at UNCC and resolve to support the Hillel students, as well as the study of Judaism and Jewish culture?

Don’t leave us to struggle without resources, without help. We need your support.

Can area congregations step forward? My congregation, Temple Or Olam, is raising money to help the Hillel association replace the succah. Will you join us in showing these young people that we care?

Can the people of our region stand together and say, “Not in our town” – “Not at our university” – “Not in our home”?

Please. Look out the window.