Jerusalem Reform synagogue vandalized over Shabbat: ‘Won’t dim our light’

The well-known Kol HaNeshama synagogue in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood was vandalized during Shabbat, after a group of youths breached the synagogue’s grounds, the congregation said Sunday.

The assailants broke a window, entered through it and tore a Pride flag in the main sanctuary, “damaging a work of art that hangs there,” Kol HaNeshama said in a statement.

Kol HaNeshama’s Rabbi Debi Shoua-Haim told The Times of Israel that no congregation members were present at the time of the attack, which security camera footage placed at about half past midnight early Saturday.

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The congregation filed a complaint with police, which on Saturday sent a detective to take prints and view security camera footage, she added.

A still frame from the footage, published online by the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, shows at least three people breached the synagogue grounds.

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“Upon receiving the report, police launched an investigation, in which several actions are being carried out and all lines of inquiry are being examined,” the police said, declining to elaborate and citing the ongoing investigation.

Kol HaNeshama, one of some 50 progressive Jewish synagogues in Israel, has long suffered anti-Reform animus, including two similar acts of vandalism in 2023.

“Vandalism and violence won’t dim our light,” the congregation said. “We hope enforcement authorities quickly find the criminals and bring them to justice.”

Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi who directed the progressive Judaism movement before entering the Knesset, slammed the vandals as “incited hooligans” and accused the government of “fostering gratuitous hatred and delegitimization of liberal Jewish denominations.”

In a post on X, Kariv also noted timing of the vandalism at Kol HaNeshama and the Friday attack against one of the largest Reform synagogues in the world, Manhattan’s Central Synagogue. The suspect was charged with multiple hate crimes, and no serious injuries were reported.

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