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Hundreds of people of various backgrounds and faiths united Saturday morning for a Shabbat service and discussion at B'nai Shalom of Olney in a stand against the anti-Semitic graffiti found spray painted at the synagogue late last month.

"This is a great community," the Rev. Nathan Krause, pastor of Olney Seventh-day Adventist Church and Clarksburg Seventh-day Adventist Church, said of Olney at the service. "What happened was an isolated incident."

On the morning of July 26, graffiti was found on the exterior walls and parking lot of B'nai Shalom at 18401 Burtfield Drive. Two nearby houses also were vandalized with anti-Semitic symbols, including swastikas.

On Aug. 4, Montgomery County Police charged Ian Jacob Baron, a homeless man who once lived near B'nai Shalom with his parents, with malicious destruction of property. Montgomery County Police charged Baron on Aug. 4 with malicious destruction of property over $500, two counts of malicious destruction of property under $500, one count of race/religious property damage and one count of defacing religious property.

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Brian G. Kim on Thursday ordered Baron to be held on $5,000 cash bail after declaring him competent to stand trial. Another judge the week before had ordered he undergo a competency evaluation.

A lawyer is not listed for Baron in state online court records.

Krause was among the religious leaders who addressed the congregation at the morning service, which was led by B'nai Shalom Rabbi Ari Sunshine.

Krause, the Rev. David Deans of Oakdale Emory United Methodist Church of Olney and others presented Sunshine and synagogue members with a letter of support and solidarity, lambasting the hate crime.

Toward the end of the ceremony, Sunshine and the other religious leaders led worshippers in reading verses of "No Religion is an Island," by Abraham Heschel, which was printed in the synagogue prayer book.

Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, told the congregation his own synagogue in West Orange, N.J., which also was named B'nai Shalom, was the victim of a hate crime when he was a child, and he remembers the image of the rabbi and several leaders of other faiths joining hands and walking down the street as hundreds of people joined in solidarity.

A legislative aide representing U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Dist. 3) of Pikesville read aloud a letter from the politician, who could not attend the Saturday service due to prior commitments, in which he told the audience that good things can come from the ashes of tragedy.