The Washington Jewish community is reeling after a masked perpetrator vandalized Shaare Torah, a conservative synagogue in Gaithersburg, early Tuesday morning, scrawling anti-Semitic symbols and slurs, including “KKK here” and multiple large swastikas on the walls of the synagogue.

The libelous act, which the Montgomery County and Gaithersburg Police Departments have classified as a hate crime, has garnered reactions of shock, horror and heartbreak from members of the Shaare Torah community, some of which overlaps with the CESJDS community.

Junior Adam Landa, a member of Shaare Torah, found out about the vandalism when he received an email that was sent out to all of the synagogue members. Landa was at first “flooded with emotions” that ranged from fear about possible escalation in anti-Semitic crimes to a desire for revenge on the person(s) responsible.

Like Landa, ninth-grader Renana Harris-Blumenthal also received word of the attacks early Tuesday morning, but not via email; Harris-Blumenthal’s father, Jacob Blumenthal, is the rabbi at Shaare Torah, so she found out from him. Rabbi Blumenthal had to tell his daughter over the phone, because he went to the synagogue immediately after he found out from the police what had happened.

“At that point we weren’t even angry yet, because we were still comprehending what had happened,” Harris-Blumenthal said. “This kind of thing just doesn’t happen much in a community like Montgomery County.”

Harris-Blumenthal, who described Montgomery County as a community that is “so peaceful between faiths” and “welcoming to all people” felt “shock” and “bewilderment”; the act left her at a “loss for words”.

“I felt violated,” she said. “I had so many questions. ‘Who would do this? Why us? What does it look like?’”

By Wednesday, most of the graffiti was gone, thanks to community members who gathered to clean up the synagogue walls and cleaning services that lent their tools free of charge.

“We’re working to clean off the building, because we don’t want to give the person the satisfaction of seeing this kind of hatred stay here,” Harris-Blumenthal said.

Despite the fact that Landa was in New York when the crime happened, he felt affected nearly 200 miles away.

“Although I am aware of the recent increase in anti-Semitism throughout the world, this is the closest it has ever been to me,” Landa said. “And it is chilling.”