Lexington, KY – Lexington police have arrested a man accused of sending threats to the religious leader of the Chabad of the Bluegrass, a Jewish student center near the University of Kentucky’s campus.
The arrest comes after Lexington Rabbi Schlomo Litvin said he started receiving threatening messages last Thursday that were too extreme to ignore.
The man arrested is 58-year-old Sendil Nathan.
Nathan was arrested Monday and is now booked at The Fayette County Detention Center, charged with second-degree terroristic threatening.
Rabbi Litvin said this is not the first time Nathan harassed him or the Chabad of the Bluegrass, but this time around the threats were potentially putting students in danger and that’s why he put the call into Lexington police over the weekend.
“Specifically the language, talking about mapping Chabad, talking about bombs, talking about extermination,” Rabbi Litvin said. “These are active words that aren’t just rambling, or harassing, but talking about making plans, about mapping, about knowing where the students are and the students are coming back. And especially at this time as UK students come back this week, the center will be filled with students.
Rabbi Litvin was thankful to Lexington police for being so attentive to the situation.
Rabbi Litvin said that it just so happens this week’s reading of the Torah talks about the call for policing and setting just laws, and with this incident happening in the same week, it felt like a spiritual moment.
With students coming in the next week, Rabbi Litvin wants to make sure students know that Lexington is still safe, accepting, and welcoming to the Jewish community.
“These voices do not represent Lexington in any way, shape, or form,” Litvin said. ” Kentucky has led the nation in many ways covering antisemitism. We were the first state to adopt the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition, the Jewish communities definition of antisemitism by law, and this doesn’t represent Lexington.”
