Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Bonneville Elementary School principal Karen Holman, like most school principals at this time of year, was looking forward to winter break.
Instead of relishing the slide into the long-awaited vacation, teachers at the Salt Lake City public school were leading delicate classroom discussions Monday morning after their school was defaced with hate-filled words and symbols over the weekend.
"We shared some messages with our students this morning to their age-appropriate level because some kids knew about it and some kids didn't, but we didn't want to have them hear the playground talk about it," Holman said.
The fifth graders created and hung a decoration in the school hallway that says "Love is powerful." Other children, unprompted, colored papers with messages about love, acceptance and dignity.
"It's amazing to watch these kids turn and be like, 'We're not going to lower ourselves to the standard of what was done to us,'" Holman said.
Shortly before 11:30 a.m. Sunday, a community member reported finding hate speech sprayed on school property, according to Salt Lake City police.
Officers found racist, homophobic and antisemitic hate speech and symbols painted on school property. Some of the messages were written with white chalk. Officers also found hate speech directed at people with physical disabilities.
The incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime, according to police.
Holman, who has been a principal for more than 15 years, said this is her first year as principal of Bonneville Elementary. Although she has faced difficult issues and events as an administrator, for someone to target the school she leads deeply disappointed and saddened her.
"I kind of adopted the term all-inclusive hatred because they hit so many different subgroups of people," she said.
On the other hand, Holman said she has been heartened by the community response. Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Salt Lake City School District Superintendent Elizabeth Grant have each reached out and offered their support.
Brown tweeted: "This is our community. We don't tolerate hate. When there's a hate crime in our city, we unite, we grow stronger, and we stand up to bigotry and evilness. I'm proud to see Salt Lakers of all ages covering Bonneville Elementary with love & compassion."
When Bonneville parents learned about the vandalism and hate speech, they showed up on a Sunday ready to remove it from the school property. Children wrote messages of love and inclusivity in chalk on the school sidewalk.
"That's the message that we want to send: 'Hate's not tolerated here. This is not acceptable.' But stand back and watch us. We're going to rise above it. We're going to show you that we're not going to take this and we're going to show you how you handle it, with love and acceptance and dignity," she said.
Holman said police and district officials who have been viewing surveillance footage believe the events occurred around 7 p.m. on Saturday. The investigation is ongoing and anyone who lives near the school is encouraged to review videos captured on doorbell or other devices to assist police, she said.
Rabbi Samuel Spector of Congregation Kol Ami said a family who attends the synagogue also has children who attend Bonneville Elementary. They asked him if they should send them to school.
"It's unfortunate that here in America and here in Salt Lake City, Utah, people can be made to feel unsafe and wonder if sending their children to elementary school is the right decision," he said.
As the Bonneville Elementary School community dealt with the vandalism and messages of hate left at the school, three bomb threats were leveled against Congregation Kol Ami in recent days, one on Friday, the last day of Chanukah, and two on Monday.
"We've seen a 400% increase in antisemitism in the United States since Oct. 7, when antisemitism has already been at an all-time high each year for the past eight years. What this stuff does is, it's just trying to instill fear and terror into Jewish communities. Unfortunately, it's occurring everywhere," said Rabbi Spector.
In a recent conversation with his wife, Rabbi Spector said he asked, "Where would we go that does not have antisemitism?"
"We couldn't think of a single place. So, unfortunately, this is our reality. Utah is a wonderful place to live, but unfortunately, we're not immune to the problem of antisemitism here as well," he said.
In times like these, "just know that your Jewish friends need love and support. They need to know that there are far more people here that love them than hate them. Our Jewish institutions right now are being bled dry because of the amount of money we're all having to spend on security is beyond some of our means. We're having to dig deep to find that money and we just need to know that people love us and that you know, that they recognize that we're going through a challenging time."
Rabbi Spector said Brown and Mendenhall also reached out to him personally, which meant a great deal. In addition, police deployed canine officers to clear the buildings at Congregation Kol Ami.
On the one hand, there is much-appreciated support, but there is also a lot of misunderstanding about the religious community.
"Regardless of your views on the Hamas/Israel war, your local Jewish community is not the Israeli government or the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). While we stand with Israel, we are not the army, we are not the government. Targeting us because of issues you might have with the Israeli government or Israel's military operations is a form of antisemitism," he said.
Neither bomb threats nor protesting outside Congregation Kol Ami synagogue "is going to make an impact on the war on the other side of the world, one way or another," Rabbi Spector said.
"It's just going to terrorize innocent American Jews, and in this case, with an elementary school, our synagogue and preschool, they're children who have nothing to do with any of this conflict," he said.
