Anti-Semitic Vandals Leave Pig’s Head at Russian Shul

By JTA December 23, 2013

Vandals used a pig’s head to desecrate a synagogue in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar.

Representatives of the Jewish community of the city, which is located 600 miles west of Baku, Azerbaijan, found the pig’s head at the entrance to their synagogue on Dec. 20. They believe the perpetrators are also responsible for English-language graffiti on the building’s external wall, which read: “Happy Tu B’Shevat, Jewish Pigs.”

Tu B´shevat, which will next occur on Jan 15, 2014, is a Jewish holiday which celebrates ecological awareness and the connection between man and the plant kingdom.

Shneor Segal, a Chabad rabbi who used to work in Krasnodar and now serves as the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Baku, said the community has contacted police with the intention of filing criminal charges against the unidentified perpetrators.

Last month, a pig’s head was left on the doorstep of a synagogue being built in Sevastopol, a Ukrainian port city located 270 miles west of Krasnodar.

]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO