Judaism
Window of synagogue in Hanover damaged on Yom Kippur
The damaged stained glass window of the synagogue in Hanover. photo
© Michael Matthey/dpa
On the holiest Jewish holiday, a hard object flies through a synagogue window during a service. The chairman of the community in Hanover is “deeply shocked”.
A window at the synagogue in Hanover was damaged on Wednesday, the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. A police spokesman confirmed this. There are no injuries. According to a report in the “Hannoversche Allgemeine” (online), 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 about 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.”
Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday, falls on different dates in September or October each year.
Three years ago, on this holiday in Halle (Saxony-Anhalt), 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 could 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.