Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Synagogue in Eastern Ukraine Struck by Firebombs

A synagogue in eastern Ukraine sustained minor damage from firebombs hurled at it by unidentified individuals.

The firebombs hit the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia, located 250 miles southeast of Kiev, on the night of Feb. 23, according to a report Monday on the news site timenews.in.ua.

The website published photos that showed the traces of a fire on the facade of the balcony of the synagogue, which opened its doors in 2012.

A spokesperson for the Zhovtneviy District where the synagogue is located said no one was hurt in the attack and that police were searching for suspects. Officers found the neck of a glass bottle which was used as a Molotov cocktail, according to the Central Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Several Ukrainian media reported erroneously that the attack happened in Kiev.

The Ukrainian capital and other cities have seen the eruption of a wave of violent demonstrations that culminated this weekend with the apparent ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.

The country’s new acting government has issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of the murder of about 100 protesters who died in street clashes last week.

The unrest began in November over Yanukovych’s refusal to sign a deal which would have tightened Ukraine’s ties with the European Union – a move which many saw as jeopardizing the country’s complicated relationship with Russia.

Several Jewish communities in Kiev have beefed up their security arrangements during the unrest. Other communities put their activities on hold out of safety concerns.

Ukraine has a Jewish population of 360,000–400,000 people, with roughly a quarter of all the country’s Jews residing in Kiev, according to the European Jewish Congress. The Jewish Agency put the figure at 200,000.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.