The sign and menorah outside the Jewish Student Center near the UK campus were vandalized this past weekend, the center’s rabbi said Monday.

Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, the director of Chabad of the Bluegrass, said he discovered the “bashed-in” sign and evidence that someone had tried to take down the menorah on Sunday afternoon. Both the sign and the large menorah sit in the yard of the center on Columbia Ave. Litvin contacted the police.

An officer took a report for criminal mischief on the same day, Lexington Police spokesperson Brenna Angel said. It’s unclear exactly when the sign was damaged. Litvin said he wasn’t home when the vandalism occurred.

Litvin said the vandalism follows threats made against him over-the-phone in August, after he’d publicly vowed to teach against pamphlets dropped around Central Kentucky by a neo-Nazi group. The rabbi also pointed to a continuing trend of recent anti-Semitic violence against Jewish student centers across the country — including an arson that caused close to $200,000 worth of damage to the Chabad Center at the University of Delaware.

This is the fourth time the Jewish Student Center’s sign has been damaged, Litvin said. After previous damage to the sign, he said they’d installed a stronger sign, but that was likely damaged beyond repair this weekend.