A mezuzah. Photo: Noam Chen/Israeli Ministry of Tourism/Flickr

A mezuzah was stolen from the door of a Jewish graduate student’s dorm at Stanford University, the school’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) has confirmed.

According to an incident summary on the school’s website, the mezuzah was “torn off a door frame” on Tuesday afternoon, the last day of Rosh Hashanah.

“It is significant that this incident occurred on the last day of Rosh Hashanah,” DPS said. “Targeting of mezuzahs is a form of intimidation and bigotry to the Jewish community. At this time the offending party(ies) is/are unknown.”

DPS also said that the incident was both vandalism and theft and called on the campus community to come forward with any information that would reveal who was behind it.

“I feel strongly for the students who were affected,” student Sophia Danielpour told StopAntisemitism, an US-based watchdog, about the incident. “It shows that antisemitism still exists on campus and it’s very real and active.”

According to StopAntisemitism, on Friday, Executive Director of Hillel at Stanford Rabbi Jessica Kirschner said the dorm that was targeted is located at the university’s Escondido Village Graduate Residences.

“When proud markers of identity are taken down it is an attack on the way of thinking about what it means for all of us to belong in our particular communities,” Kirschner said. “If someone did this deliberately, it’s a way of saying ‘you don’t belong here.'”

Antisemitic incidents were reported at several colleges and universities during Rosh Hashanah, one of the holiest holidays in Judaism.

At Rutgers University, the house of a Jewish fraternity at Rutgers University (RU) was, for the third time, egged. At American University, a swastika was carved into a ceiling, and antisemitic propaganda was discovered at the University of Michigan and SUNY Oneonta.

“Over Rosh Hashanah, four different incidents were reported,” Jewish on Campus, a nonprofit monitoring antisemitism tweeted. “This was intentional.”