People huddled for a unity vigil outside the South Windsor Town Hall on Monday.
There are concerns close to home.
“Recently a high school student was verbally abused with racial slurs by someone in the community. And that’s something we do not accept in our town,” Saud Anwar, a South Windsor town councilman, said.
Then across the country police are investigating some twenty anti-Semitic bomb threats on Monday.
Detectives say one targeted the Hebrew High School in West Hartford.
“We need people to take it seriously. Just because there may not be anything to the threats, the fact that the threats are being made is cause for some kind of action,” Becky McCann of Vernon, said.
And Monday’s hope for tolerance comes a day after a disturbing discovery at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.
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A rabbi reported that vandals had knocked over 460 headstones.
They are brazen acts of hate that left some in disbelief.
“I haven’t seen in the past 90 years. This is terrible,” Herb Shook of Vernon, said.
The vigil in South Windsor was also a show of defiance; to not be afraid in the face of threats and to bring people together during a time of divisiveness.
“God is in everybody. So all human beings are equal. And that’s the faith we believe in,” Amarjit Singh of Shelton, said.
Besides the West Hartford school Monday, threats have been made against Jewish community centers in the state in the past couple months including one in West Hartford and one in Woodbridge.
