SN:? The person who broke into a Sunnyvale synagogue office sometime over the weekend and stole computers, phones and software made off with not just equipment, but the recorded heart of a community.? Since Chabad of Sunnyvale opened three years ago, it has offered services for Jewish families that now number more than 500. No financial information about any of them was stolen, but hundreds of kids waiting to go to summer camp will have to register all over again. And Rabbi Yisroel Hecht must somehow re-create years’ worth of historical data about programs and people.

Hecht, who believes the burglary was not an anti-Semitic act, has remained so calm in the aftermath that even his wife wondered why. His answer comes from an old Yiddish saying that translates, “After a fire, you get blessings.”

The first blessing? The room with the group’s religious artifacts was not entered.

Police say this incident is one in a series of burglaries in the area. Hecht said police told him that dental offices recently have been targeted, and Chabad’s rooms are located in a building occupied by several dentists’ offices.

The secretary at Chabad of Sunnyvale discovered the break-in Monday morning when she came in to work and noticed a broken window and a mess.

“We are grateful the synagogue was not harmed,” Hecht said, “but from a financial standpoint this is devastating.”

Machines can be replaced, but the reconstruction of records will take a long time. That task might have been easier, except the thieves also took many of the backup files.