Kyiv Post - 04.22.2002

The Kyiv Post

Second Attack on Ukrainian Synagogues in a Week

The Associated Press

KYIV- An unidentified assailant hurled a stone through the window of a synagogue in southern Ukraine in the second such attack on a Ukrainian synagogue in a week, officials said Sunday. Shlomo Gottlieb, rabbi of the only synagogue in Mykolaiv, 520 kilometers (320 miles) southwest of Kyiv, was sitting at his desk Friday when a stone crashed through his window, narrowly missing him, according to Moshe-Reuven Azman, chief rabbi in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Gottlieb immediately ran out to the street, but the assailant had fled. No one was injured. Police arrived at the scene a few minutes later, but made no arrests, Azman said. Gottlieb urged authorities to bring the culprits to justice. Police in Mykolaiv could not be reached Sunday to confirm if they had made any arrests. The Mykolaiv attack came just one week after dozens of youths attacked Kiev's central synagogue, beating three people with stones and breaking windows.

Vadym Rabinovich, President of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress, said that assailants broke all the windows of the Kyiv synagogue and painted swastikas on the walls in an attack January 27. Two weeks ago, a man with a knife stabbed an elderly Jewish man in the face at a synagogue in Lutsk, 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of Kyiv. Azman said no anti-Semitic violence was reported in Ukraine on Hitler's birthday Saturday.

A wave of anti-Semitic attacks has hit France and other European countries this month amid Israel's offensive in the West Bank.