In The Days

• News Date: 7/11/07
• Source: Jerusalem Post

A wave of anti-Semitic attacks comprising of graffiti, a vandalized Holocaust memorial and verbal abuse, hit European cities on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;”
—Isa 43:6

In Moscow, vandals drew a picture of a burning Swastika and Star of David on the wall of a Hebrew learning institution belonging to the Jewish Agency.

Earlier, a group of about 20 people chanting Nazi slogans accosted a rabbi in central Ukraine, a Jewish community spokesman said.

Rabbi Shlomo Vilgelm was uninjured in the attack late Monday near the synagogue in Zhytomyr, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) west of Kiev, said Oleh Rostovtsev, spokesman for the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine.

Police have opened a criminal investigation into the incident, but did not comment on specifics.

Rostovtsev criticized officials for not doing enough to discourage anti-Semitism in Ukraine, where there are some 100,000 Jews. He noted that police routinely classified attacks as cases of hooliganism, a lesser offense.

Police denied allegations of anti-Semitism on the force.

Meanwhile, vandals burned a small Israeli flag and knocked over candles at a Berlin memorial to Jews deported during the Holocaust, police.

Police said they discovered the damage shortly before midnight Tuesday at the memorial at the Grunewald train station, from which thousands of Jews were deported to death camps during the Holocaust.

An investigation was under way.