Bullet hole (Illustration)
Bullet hole (Illustration)Tomer Neuberg/Flash 90

A gunshot was fired through the window of an Indiana synagogue.

The bullet hole was discovered late Monday in the window of a Sunday School classroom at Adath B’Nai Israel Temple in Evansville. The apparent attack was reported to police on Tuesday morning, according to reports.

Rabbi Gary Mazo told the Indianapolis Star that the shooter would have had to walk around to the back of the temple building and fire into the classroom from the temple’s playground. The attack is believed to have occurred on Sunday night.

“We’re in this climate now where acts of hate are happening everywhere,” the rabbi told the newspaper.

“The goal was to make us afraid, but we’re not going to let fear consume us. We’ll stand up to fear, we’ll stand up to hatred and we’ll stand together. We know this is not representative of our community. We know that we live in a community that supports each other,” the rabbi also said.

Both the Evansville Police Department and the FBI are investigating the incident.

Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke visited the temple Tuesday morning and issued a statement condemning the attack and calling it “a disgusting act of hate and bigotry that cannot be tolerated.” He also said in the statement that: “Our community must come together in support of religious freedom and stand together with our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

Indiana is one of five states that does not have a hate crimes law on the books.

The incident occurred a day after proposed hate crimes legislation died in the Indiana state legislature and after the Indiana Jewish Community Center received a bomb threat, one of 28 JCCs and Jewish schools targeted that day across the country.