‘Our community is not intimidated’: Lexington Rabbi responds to hate threats against UK Jewish Student Center

A Lexington man is accused of making threats against UK's Chabad Jewish Student Center.

Lexington, KY (WTVQ): A man accused of making threats against UK’s Chabad Jewish Student Center was arrested Sunday. Police say 58-year-old Sendil Nathan is charged with terroristic threatening. Officers say Nathan sent “hate speech” messages and threats to the Jewish Student Center multiple times last week.

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin says this is not the first time anti-Semitic threats have targeted the Jewish Student Center, but says this is the first time that law enforcement has reacted so quickly to the situation. Previous threats included more than half a dozen vandalism incidents at the University, and an attack on a menorah lighting a couple years ago.

“But threats like this in this quick succession with this kind of language is something new for our center,” Litvin said.

Last week, Litvin said the Center started to get threatening messages from a random source. “The war going on in Niger, and Hunter Biden all sorts of different stories and tying it all back to the Jews,” he said. Over the weekend, the messages started to escalate directly targeting the group. According to Litvin, the messages included: “Death is the only option, and just some horrifyingly violent messages talking about Jews stuffing Jews into the gas chambers.”

The Lexington Police Department reacted quickly. “By the first message they were already tracking this, they were already working on it,” Litvin said. “They didn’t wait for it to become an imminent threat that has to be dealt with in the next minute or God forbid something happens.”

Litvin said although the Jewish population only makes up about several thousand people in the region, he’s proud to see the support from the Lexington community. “Our community is not intimidated. We are not canceling programs. We are not hiding,” he said.

In response to the hate, Chabad plans to soon purchase a permanent home for the Jewish Student Center in Lexington.