JERUSALEM – Vandals broke right into a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem over the weekend, damaging the constructing and art work and tearing down Pleasure flags displayed by the congregation.
Shortly after midnight on Shabbat a bunch of youths entered the grounds of Kol HaNeshamah in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood, smashed a window and made their manner into the prayer corridor.
Safety footage launched by the Reform motion reveals at the least three folks on the website. No congregants have been current on the time.
“This previous weekend we skilled a severe incident at our synagogue, when unknown people broke into the compound, broken the constructing, vandalized a murals and tore down the Pleasure flags that characterize the neighborhood’s values of inclusion and acceptance,” Debi Shoua Haim, a rabbi at Kol HaNeshamah, advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company.
“Exactly through the month of mercy and forgiveness, it’s painful to see shows of hatred and violence that haven’t any place in a correctly functioning society,” Shoua Haim stated, referring to the Hebrew month of Elul, historically a interval of repentance main as much as the Jewish Excessive Holidays.
The congregation turned over safety footage from the incident to police, who opened an investigation by Jerusalem’s Moriah station, Shoua Haim stated. Police additionally despatched a detective to the synagogue on Saturday to look at the footage and acquire fingerprints, based on Shoua Haim.
Kol HaNeshamah is considered one of Israel’s best-known Reform congregations and has beforehand been focused in assaults involving its help for the LGBTQ neighborhood. In 2018, a big rock was hurled into its courtyard whereas greater than 200 folks have been collaborating in Simchat Torah celebrations, prompting the congregation to file a police criticism. Nobody was injured.
In June 2023, the synagogue reported two break-ins inside a matter of weeks by which Pleasure flags displayed for Pleasure Month have been torn down. Throughout a type of incidents, intruders additionally entered the sanctuary, though nothing was stolen.
Safety footage from the 2023 incidents confirmed two youths coming into the synagogue. Rabbi Oded Mazor, one other rabbi at Kol HaNeshamah, stated on the time that the intruders had entered by a kitchen window earlier than transferring by the constructing, kicking objects and flattening the flag. Police complaints have been filed after each assaults.
The most recent assault drew condemnation from Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi and lawmaker from Israel’s Democrats celebration who beforehand headed the Israel Motion for Reform and Progressive Judaism.
Kariv referred to as these accountable “incited hooligans” and accused the Israeli authorities of contributing to hostility towards Reform and different liberal Jewish denominations.
“This can be a authorities that focuses on spreading hatred free of charge and in delegitimizing the liberal Jewish streams,” he wrote on X.
Kariv additionally referred to as on Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion to go to Kol HaNeshamah and publicly stand with the congregation. Reform and Conservative communities in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel face comparable assaults “on a weekly foundation,” he stated.
Lion has not but publicly commented on the incident however Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yossi Havilio described it as a part of a “wave of hate crimes towards the LGBTQ neighborhood in Jerusalem,” saying the Pleasure flag had been taken from the synagogue and urged police to not dismiss the vandalism as a prank.
“A hate crime just isn’t a ‘prank,’” Havilio wrote on social media.
The incident additionally got here inside hours of an assault at Central Synagogue, a significant Reform congregation in Manhattan, the place an assailant disrupted a Friday night time Shabbat service and attacked a congregant and a safety guard. There was no indication that the 2 incidents have been related.
Kol HaNeshamah was based in Jerusalem in 1984 and has turn into a outstanding heart of Reform Judaism within the metropolis, combining egalitarian spiritual observe with help for spiritual pluralism and LGBTQ inclusion. Its presence in Jerusalem has additionally periodically made it a goal of opposition from critics of non-Orthodox Judaism.
Police haven’t publicly recognized the perpetrators or declared a motive for Saturday’s break-in, and there have been no arrests introduced within the case.
Shoua Haim stated the congregation wouldn’t change course in response to the assault.
“To all those that try to extinguish our gentle, the Kol HaNeshamah neighborhood will proceed to be an open, embracing and accepting home of prayer,” she stated. “Hatred won’t defeat our values, and we’ll proceed to work for togetherness, love and tolerance.”
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