The Minchat Chovev synagogue in Ramat Gan was attacked for the second time in several weeks last Friday, after unknown assailants smashed the building’s entrance door. The incident follows an earlier case in which a mezuzah was stolen from the synagogue. Following the attack, the mayor arrived at the scene and met with community leaders. City officials emphasized that this is a long-established synagogue located in a complex that includes six synagogues, and that at this stage there is no indication of internal disputes or conflicts with anyone in the area.
Ramat Gan municipality said in a statement: “On Friday just before Shabbat began, the mayor arrived at the synagogue to support the community, examine the background, and provide municipal assistance and backing for any need that arose. The mayor spoke at length with the synagogue’s leaders and promised to come pray with them soon, as he had to rush to his personal shift alongside his mother at the hospital. This is a long-established synagogue located in a complex of six synagogues with no internal disputes and no arguments with any of the neighbors. An attack on a synagogue is a shocking hate crime whether it is nationalist or anti-Semitic in nature, and no less so if it was carried out by a benighted Jew.”
Ramat Gan municipality added: “In a liberal and Jewish city like Ramat Gan, no person or body, whoever they may be, has the ability to harm freedom of religion, and the municipality and mayor will always provide full and broad backing to anyone attacked in a hate crime, whether it involves vandalism at a synagogue or arson at a café operating on weekends and the like. At the moment, no authority has any lead regarding the background of the incident or the identity of the perpetrator, and we must wait for progress in the investigation. Beyond that, already on Friday morning immediately after the incident, the deputy mayor arrived at the synagogue and arranged for the debris to be handled and then for a new door to be ordered and installed at the municipality’s expense, despite this being a private synagogue.”