Guard at Ukrainian synagogue fends off ax-wielding attacker

A man armed with an ax burst into a synagogue in southeastern Ukraine on Tuesday morning and was disarmed and chased away by the security guard.

The attempted attack in Mariupol during the morning prayers was captured by the synagogue’s security cameras.

A rabbi and several worshipers were inside the building at the time, according to the Jewish News of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine. The report did not specify if the guard suffered injuries.

In footage of the attack, the security guard can be seen wrestling with the attacker for control of the ax. The two exchange blows before the attacker finally runs off emptyhanded.

He then returns, hurls the contents of a sack, and walks off. According to the report, he threw feces, sand and other materials at the synagogue.

The local police have been alerted and are searching for the man, according to the community’s Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cohen, who witnessed the attack.

Cohen thanked the security guard — named as Richard Anatolyevich Golomazov and described as two decades older than the attacker — for shielding the Jewish worshipers from harm.

The rabbi also said he managed to slip out of the synagogue during the attack and snap a photo of the assailant.

Joel Lion, Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine, said in response that “it was an anti-Semitic attack,” the Kan public broadcaster reported.