Police investigating desecration of Torah scroll at George Washington University frat
 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/us/ge...rah/index.html

This is at the edge of what the forum covers, but I couldn't find better...

The Tau Kappa Epsilon house at George Washington University was broken into and vandalized including a Torah scroll torn and having liquid laundry detergent dumped on it.

According to the article TKE at GWU is about 1/4 Jewish, similar to the campus at large. Honestly to me, the most surprising thing in the article is that a Torah was found at any Fraternity House other than one that is Historically Jewish (AEPi, ZBT, etc.) Torahs are generally *expensive* ($30,000 to $100,000), since a proper torah is hand written. This appears to be a smaller one, though.

According to
https://www.gwhatchet.com/2021/10/31...-campus-house/

The chapter has a torah as it is one of the religious texts used to swear new members in. A christian bible was moved, but not disturbed...

I'm also curious as to why a Torah, A book bound complete machine printed Hebrew Bible would be acceptable for an oath for most Jews, I believe. (And I'd expect the really Orthodox Jews to go AEPi)

See https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/03/us/co...rnd/index.html top center for an example for a Jew taking an oath of office to serve in congress...

Reaction of the University, the chapter and the national fraternity are appropriate...

(Disclaimer, I'm Jewish)

Perhaps it is not used only for Jewish members, but for general ritual and it is specific specification of their ritual. Perhaps a wealthy Jewish member donated this torah to his chapter. We could speculate for hours and not find the answer, but it boils down to the fact that to desecrate any holy book is awful. I hope that the culprit(s) are caught and punished.

The first would *greatly* confuse/surprise me. The likelihood that a fraternity with no apparently Jewish early traditions (Their first three chapters are in Illinois, early growth was in the midwest and away from the highly Jewishly concentrated areas) and no apparently transplanted jewish traditions (like for example the latter day saints) seems odd. I would expect that the local ADL wouldn't even call it a torah in that case.

The second is reasonable. There is nothing in the photographs to indicate that the way that TKE was storing it was unreasonable (the red baglike thing with hebrew lettering on it to the left of the desecrated torah in the would be a *quite* appropriate torah cover that would be used when stored at a synagogue.

If so, the idea of it being "loaned" for usage for Rosh Hashana /Yom Kippur services by one of the Jewish groups on campus would not be unreasonable.

TKE alum here. The fraternity started at Illinois Wesleyan University. While this chapter may have several Jewish members, there is nothing Jewish about the fraternity or its ritual.

Thank you.