SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Two Molotov cocktails were hurled at a synagogue north of Paris, the latest attack in what France's interior minister said Monday is a new wave of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attacks over the violence in Gaza. No injuries were reported.
President Nicolas Sarkozy met with religious leaders and reiterated the need to avoid "transposing" onto French soil a foreign conflict the country has been working to ease, his office said.
Firebombs broke a window and charred the walls of a pizzeria on the ground floor at Chabad House Ohr Manahem, in the town of Saint-Denis, said Isroeil Belinow, the synagogue's assistant rabbi. Belinow said police found 15 other unignited firebombs nearby.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France has faced a "very clear increase" in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks since Israel started an offensive against the militant group Hamas in Gaza on Dec. 27.
"We must do everything to stop the importation into our country of the situation that's taking place in the Middle East," Alliot-Marie told RTL Radio.
She declined to provide specific figures on the increase, though insisted police have been instructed to protect religious sites and places of worship.
France has Western Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim populations, and Middle East tensions have in the past spilled over into vandalism or other incidents.
In the Chabad House attack, prayers had just finished and the rabbi was getting ready to go home Sunday night when he heard an explosion, Belinow said. Neighbors saw flames and called police.
Showing posts with label vandalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vandalism. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2009
Chicago synagogues hit by hate crime spree
Vandals struck four Chicago-area synagogues early Saturday morning, shattering glass doors and windows with bricks and rocks and spray-painting anti-Israel graffiti.
The caretakers at Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation in the normally quiet village of Lincolnwood just outside Chicago woke up to the sound of shattering glass and saw two adults running through the synagogue's parking lot in ski masks. Four bricks were thrown through the building's front doors, but the vandals were unable to gain entry.
"Death to Israel Free Palestine," was the message left behind on the walls in bright orange spray paint.
Similar incidents occurred around the same time not far away at three synagogues and schools in Chicago's West Rogers Park, a neighborhood dominated by Orthodox Jews. Two windows were shattered at Young Israel of West Rogers Park, "Death to Israel" was spray-painted on the wall of Congregation Anshe Motele and rocks broke a glass window at the Lubavitch Mesivta school.
Lubavitch Mesivta's Rabbi Moshe Perlstein told the Chicago Sun-Times that cameras captured video of the men damaging his school at around 4:40 a.m. The footage shows one man spray-painting the side of the building while the other ran around to the front and threw rocks at the front door, breaking a glass window, he said. The video has been turned over to police.
Lincolnwood and Chicago police and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force will check whether there was a connection between Saturday's incidents and the December 29 throwing of a Molotov cocktail into Temple Sholom, one of Chicago's oldest and most ornate synagogues, in the Lakeview neighborhood.
The city's Ida Crown Jewish Academy high school received a mailed bomb threat two weeks ago that warned of attacks at other Chicago-area Jewish institutions, including day schools.
A pro-Israel rally was held at Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation on Sunday afternoon to respond to the spate of hate crimes and support Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. The synagogue's rabbi, Joel Lehrfield, called the perpetrators of the hate crime "cowardly thugs who support Hamas."
"We're more worried about Israel than we are about ourselves," Lehrfield said.
Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago executive vice president Michael Kotzin said it was ironic that he was on a solidarity mission in southern Israel when he heard about the attacks back home.
"I wouldn't say that we're in the front lines in Chicago like here, but there are people who are hostile to and hate Jews here and there, and we have to address it," Kotzin said. "It's important that law enforcement takes it seriously. But we won't be frightened or intimidated, just like the people of Israel. Their behavior strengthens us."
The caretakers at Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation in the normally quiet village of Lincolnwood just outside Chicago woke up to the sound of shattering glass and saw two adults running through the synagogue's parking lot in ski masks. Four bricks were thrown through the building's front doors, but the vandals were unable to gain entry.
"Death to Israel Free Palestine," was the message left behind on the walls in bright orange spray paint.
Similar incidents occurred around the same time not far away at three synagogues and schools in Chicago's West Rogers Park, a neighborhood dominated by Orthodox Jews. Two windows were shattered at Young Israel of West Rogers Park, "Death to Israel" was spray-painted on the wall of Congregation Anshe Motele and rocks broke a glass window at the Lubavitch Mesivta school.
Lubavitch Mesivta's Rabbi Moshe Perlstein told the Chicago Sun-Times that cameras captured video of the men damaging his school at around 4:40 a.m. The footage shows one man spray-painting the side of the building while the other ran around to the front and threw rocks at the front door, breaking a glass window, he said. The video has been turned over to police.
Lincolnwood and Chicago police and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force will check whether there was a connection between Saturday's incidents and the December 29 throwing of a Molotov cocktail into Temple Sholom, one of Chicago's oldest and most ornate synagogues, in the Lakeview neighborhood.
The city's Ida Crown Jewish Academy high school received a mailed bomb threat two weeks ago that warned of attacks at other Chicago-area Jewish institutions, including day schools.
A pro-Israel rally was held at Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation on Sunday afternoon to respond to the spate of hate crimes and support Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. The synagogue's rabbi, Joel Lehrfield, called the perpetrators of the hate crime "cowardly thugs who support Hamas."
"We're more worried about Israel than we are about ourselves," Lehrfield said.
Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago executive vice president Michael Kotzin said it was ironic that he was on a solidarity mission in southern Israel when he heard about the attacks back home.
"I wouldn't say that we're in the front lines in Chicago like here, but there are people who are hostile to and hate Jews here and there, and we have to address it," Kotzin said. "It's important that law enforcement takes it seriously. But we won't be frightened or intimidated, just like the people of Israel. Their behavior strengthens us."
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Harvard Chabad Menorah Vandalized
A large menorah set up by the Chabad House at Harvard in Cambridge Common was found brutally vandalized Friday morning—the culminating act in a week of damage inflicted on Chabad's religious display in the Common.
"The entire menorah was basically destroyed. One of the arms was broken off. Six of the bulbs had been destroyed," said Joel B. Pollak, a student at the Harvard Law School. "When I looked more closely, I saw the electrical wires had been cut." Pollak said he discovered the damage while walking by the park on Friday just past noon. He wrote about the incident on his blog later that day.
The menorah was part of a Hanukkah display erected in the Common by The Chabad House at Harvard, a Jewish community organization. The defacement was particularly cutting during the week of celebration for the Jewish community, said HLS Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, one of the faculty advisers to The Chabad House.
"[Hanukkah is] a festival of bringing people together," he said. "Clearly this has all the appearance of a hate crime."
Dershowitz said he believed the attack on a menorah was an attack on Judaism, not related political philosophies such as Zionism.
"This menorah is purely a religious symbol," he said. "It's just a plain-out anti-Semitic act."
The incident, identified as a case of "malicious destruction" by the Cambridge Police Department's public crime log, was the most dramatic event in a serious of attacks on The Chabad House's holiday display in the Common.
According to Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, the director of The Chabad House, "Happy Hanukkah" signs placed near the menorah appeared torn on Wednesday and Thursday. He said he originally dismissed these subtle signs of damage, believing them to be accidental, not malicious.
"For a couple of days throughout the holiday, we saw the sign on the menorah was ripped. We said, 'Let's hope it was the weather.'" But he said the demolition of the menorah proved that the damage was indeed intentional.
The CPD's crime log reports damage on the Cambridge Common's Hanukkah display between Dec. 18 and Dec. 26. There have been no arrests made, and the Police Department declined to comment on the incidents.
Zarchi said the display will not be repaired this year, as the Hanukkah celebration ends Monday. But he said that Harvard Chabad still plans to put up a menorah again next year.
"We will not be deterred by this act," he said. "We will continue this beautiful traditional of bringing light and warmth and illumination."
He did say, however, that next year he plans to have the Cambridge police provide security for the new menorah.
"The entire menorah was basically destroyed. One of the arms was broken off. Six of the bulbs had been destroyed," said Joel B. Pollak, a student at the Harvard Law School. "When I looked more closely, I saw the electrical wires had been cut." Pollak said he discovered the damage while walking by the park on Friday just past noon. He wrote about the incident on his blog later that day.
The menorah was part of a Hanukkah display erected in the Common by The Chabad House at Harvard, a Jewish community organization. The defacement was particularly cutting during the week of celebration for the Jewish community, said HLS Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, one of the faculty advisers to The Chabad House.
"[Hanukkah is] a festival of bringing people together," he said. "Clearly this has all the appearance of a hate crime."
Dershowitz said he believed the attack on a menorah was an attack on Judaism, not related political philosophies such as Zionism.
"This menorah is purely a religious symbol," he said. "It's just a plain-out anti-Semitic act."
The incident, identified as a case of "malicious destruction" by the Cambridge Police Department's public crime log, was the most dramatic event in a serious of attacks on The Chabad House's holiday display in the Common.
According to Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, the director of The Chabad House, "Happy Hanukkah" signs placed near the menorah appeared torn on Wednesday and Thursday. He said he originally dismissed these subtle signs of damage, believing them to be accidental, not malicious.
"For a couple of days throughout the holiday, we saw the sign on the menorah was ripped. We said, 'Let's hope it was the weather.'" But he said the demolition of the menorah proved that the damage was indeed intentional.
The CPD's crime log reports damage on the Cambridge Common's Hanukkah display between Dec. 18 and Dec. 26. There have been no arrests made, and the Police Department declined to comment on the incidents.
Zarchi said the display will not be repaired this year, as the Hanukkah celebration ends Monday. But he said that Harvard Chabad still plans to put up a menorah again next year.
"We will not be deterred by this act," he said. "We will continue this beautiful traditional of bringing light and warmth and illumination."
He did say, however, that next year he plans to have the Cambridge police provide security for the new menorah.
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