(JTA) — A former hotel security guard was indicted on a federal civil rights charge for defacing a Jewish school’s Torah scroll and prayer books.
Justin Shawn Baker, 25, was indicted last week for violating the civil rights of students of the Margolin Hebrew Academy’s Cooper Yeshiva High School of Memphis.
Baker was arrested in January after the school’s students and faculty showed up for a worship service in the conference room at the DoubleTree Hotel in Jackson, Tenn., and discovered the Torah scroll and prayer books damaged and covered with graffiti, including “Gentiles win, Jews lose” and “Submit to Satan.”
Approximately 50 high school students and faculty from the school were spending Shabbat at the motel on their way to a ski trip in the Smoky Mountains.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
