‘Kill the Jews’ painted on Ukrainian synagogue

Vandals write “kill the Jews” on a synagogue in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy. In a separate incident, unidentified persons torch a wreath that an Israeli cabinet minister had placed for Holocaust victims in Kiev.

The incident involving a synagogue was discovered on Wednesday in Cherkasy, Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, writes on Facebook. In addition to spray-painting the message of incitement to violence against Jews on an external wall, the perpetrators write: “Jews annexed Ukraine.”

They use the word “zhyd,” which many Ukrainian Jews consider derogatory.

Dolinsky sarcastically describes the inscription as “traditional congratulations for Purim.”

On Tuesday, Dolinsky wrote that the wreath placed earlier this month by Israel Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the Babi Yar Jewish Holocaust monument had been torched hours after she left it there. The attack was the seventh case of vandalism against the monument since 2015.

— JTA