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World Jewish News
Vandals desecrate Transdniestr synagogue
04.03.2009
Vandals desecrated a synagogue in Bendery, a town in the breakaway Transdniestr republic.
The unidentified vandals broke into the synagogue Sunday night, drawing neo-Nazi graffiti on the walls and desecrating the synagogue, according to a source in Moldova. The area in which the synagogue is located seceded from Moldova in the early 1990s.
The vandals also desecrated the synagogue's ark, Torah scrolls, and prayer table, they burned posters, and stole silver religious objects, Mikhail Tulchinsky, Bendery synagogue and community leader, told the local publication Novaya Gazeta.
According to local Jewish leaders this is not the first incident of vandalism and anti-Semitism in Bendery.
Local law enforcement agencies are investigating the case as an incident of "hooliganism."
Tulchinsky said that a Holocaust memorial was vandalized twice recently in Bendery, and that neo-Nazi youth painted Nazi symbols on the gates of local Jewish cemetery. “This was done in order to drive us out of here,” Tulchinsky told Novaya Gazeta.
It is not clear if the town has hate crimes legislation on its books.
Источник: JTA
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