On the highest Jewish holiday
Attack on synagogue in Hanover
10/06/2022 12:52 am
A good 150 people gather in the synagogue in Hanover to celebrate Yom Kippur, the highest Jewish holiday. Towards the end of the service, visitors hear glass clinking: one of the windows of the church has been smashed. The community chairman is certain that it was no prank for children.
A window at the synagogue in Hanover was damaged on Wednesday, the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. This was confirmed by a police spokesman. There are no injuries. According to a report in the “Hannoversche Allgemeine”, a stone or other hard object was thrown through a stained glass window in the women’s gallery at around 7 p.m. during the service.
The police spokesman said: “It is certain that a window was damaged. It has not yet been clarified how.” There is no reliable evidence for an attack, the investigations are still ongoing. According to the newspaper report, around 150 people had gathered in the synagogue on the Day of Atonement to pray. Towards the end of the service, visitors heard a clang and a bang, the newspaper reports. There was a hole in the window regarding six meters up.
Michael Fürst, the chairman of the congregation, told the newspaper: “The perpetrator must have entered the synagogue grounds. I am deeply shocked.” There is a lot to suggest that someone climbed over the fence. “It mightn’t have been children,” said Fürst. It was the first time that something like this had happened in Hanover.
Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday, falls on different dates in September or October each year. Three years ago, on this holiday in Halle, a heavily armed right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic assassin tried to cause a bloodbath in the fully occupied synagogue of the Jewish community in Halle. He threw incendiary and explosive devices and shot at the access door on October 9, 2019, but might not get onto the premises because the door withstood the attack. He shot a passer-by in front of the synagogue and a 20-year-old in a nearby kebab shop. The Naumburg Higher Regional Court sentenced the perpetrator to life imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention.