Reform Shul in Ra’anana vandalized… again!

ANT KATZ

A Shul in the central Israeli city of Ra’anana was
vandalized with graffiti last week. This is the fifth time in four years that
the Reform Shul has been the target of religious extremists according to Rabbi
Gilad Kariv, head of the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC).

The graffiti on the outside of the Kehilat Ra’anan Shul building
included quotes on non-believers from Moses Maimonides, the 12th-century Jewish
scholar and philosopher known as the Rambam, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“Kehilat Ra’anan has contributed significantly to Israeli
society,” an angry Anat Hoffman, chair of IRAC told Jewish Report this week. “Their
Bar and Bat Mitzvah programme engages both religious and secular Israelis and
three schools have recently requested to be part of this program,” said Anat.

US Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro called the
congregation to voice his concern upon hearing about the attack, and Habayit
Hayehudi deputy mayor and Meretz deputy mayor both visited the site and
expressed their horror. The police have opened an investigation of Thursday’s
vandalism. However, like the other attacks on this synagogue, a suspect has yet
to be identified.

An Israeli police picture of the
vandalised Shul

Rabbi Kariv told JTA this was what he referred to as a
“price tag” vandalism incident, referring to the strategy adopted by extremist
settlers and their supporters generally to exact retribution for settlement
freezes and demolitions or Palestinian attacks on Jews.

IRAC condemns hate crimes of any nature, said Hoffman, whether
it is a spray painting attack on an Arab car or against a Reform or
Conservative Shul, “people who would use Jewish religious texts to justify hate
should be challenged at every turn,” she said.

The graffiti, written in large blue and red spray paint on
the outside wall of the Kehilat Ra’anan Shul reads: “Maimonides Laws of
Repentance, Chapter 3, Law 14” and “Psalms 139, verse
21-22.”  The first quote refers to
the passage in which Maimonides declared that renegades, heretics, and deniers
of Torah do not have a place in the world to come, even though they are Jews,
if they do not repent before they die. 
The passages from the Book of Psalms read: “Do I not hate them, O
Lord, that hate Thee? And do not I strive with those that rise up against Thee?
I hate them with utmost hatred; I count them as my enemies.”