A Jewish business owner who runs a popular ice cream shop in San Francisco’s Mission District spoke out publicly for the first time Tuesday since a vandal or vandals smashed windows and left pro-Palestinian graffiti on her shop’s exterior last week.

In a statement posted on Smitten Ice Cream’s website and sent to a handful of journalists, Robyn Sue Fisher wrote that she “initially felt only fear and deep sadness” when she saw what happened to her shop on Wednesday — all of its windows shattered except for one that was broken but intact enough for someone to spray-paint “FREE PALESTIEN” on it, misspelling “Palestine.”

Later, though, Fisher felt the resolve to reopen the store, and also plans to sell merchandise to “spread joy,” with proceeds going to charity.

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“The graffiti suggests that the shop was targeted because I am Jewish, and it is currently being investigated by authorities as a hate crime,” her statement said.

“Smitten has no religious nor political affiliation,” Fisher added. “I am a Jewish woman, and the team we have built at Smitten is wonderfully diverse, as is our beautiful city.”

A graduate of Stanford Business School, Fisher started Smitten by selling ice cream out of a hand-pulled wagon in 2009 and now owns three brick-and-mortar shops in the Bay Area and Las Vegas.

It wasn’t immediately clear why vandals targeted Smitten. Fisher has spoken openly about her Jewishness in news publications, including in J., and has doled out seasonal ice cream flavors coinciding with Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah.

The vandalism at Smitten came amid a wave of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. as Israel bombs Gaza, killing thousands in an effort to destroy Hamas following an Oct. 7 massacre of civilians by the Islamist group. In the terrorist attack, unprecedented in its scale and brutality, Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and took an estimated 240 hostages. Calling the increase in antisemitic acts in the U.S. “dramatic,” the Anti-Defamation League has reported a close to 400% spike here compared with the same period last year.

In Northern California in recent weeks, a Fresno synagogue’s door was shattered, a pro-Israel student at UC Berkeley was assaulted with a metal water bottle, a San Francisco bank was tagged with “Death 2 Israel” and “Kill a settler” and a Berkeley billboard countering antisemitism was defaced with a message supporting Hamas.

Since the attack happened, hundreds upon hundreds of people in our community and across the country have reached out in solidarity and support.

The news of the vandalism at Smitten, known for using liquid nitrogen to churn out made-to-order ice cream in 90 seconds, led to an outpouring of support. Friends launched a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $42,000 from about 240 donors in five days.

Meanwhile, rumors circulated online that Smitten would close permanently. Those rumors were false. Fisher said she is “working hard to reopen Smitten’s doors to all people as a place to come together.” Laborers could be heard working with tools inside the shop on Valencia Street on Thursday behind the entirely boarded-up windows and doors.

“We cannot know what was in the mind of the unknown individual or individuals who inflicted this severe damage to our store,” Fisher said in the statement. “What we do know is that, since the attack happened, hundreds upon hundreds of people in our community and across the country have reached out in solidarity and support. This has meant more to me than words can express.”

Smitten will start selling T-shirts and sweatshirts that say, “In the spirit of ice cream, I choose love.” The apparel will be available in-store and online soon, the statement said, and proceeds will go toward “benefiting our local community.” The word “smitten” means “in love,” the statement noted.

The San Francisco Police Department said Tuesday it did not have an update on the investigation. In the department’s initial statement released six days ago, on the day of the crime, spokesperson Gonee Sepulveda said the shop “had been vandalized for unknown reasons.”