Police arrest suspect in Ra’anana Reform synagogue vandalism

A 39-year-old man from central Israel is arrested on suspicion of vandalizing a Reform synagogue in Ra’anana and leaving threatening notes outside the Jerusalem home of a prominent Israeli ethicist and atheist, police say.

The Israeli man, who is not identified by police, carried out the hate crimes in 2014-2016 with a religious motive, police say. The police statement about the suspect’s arrest does not detail his religious leanings.

According to police, the suspect is linked to the defacing of the Kehilat Ra’anan synagogue in 2014 and 2016. In the latter instance, graffiti with biblical references was sprayed on the building and envelopes containing death threats against senior leaders in the Reform movement were left outside of the building along with a knife branded with scriptural references.

In January 2014, the Kehilat Ra’anan synagogue suffered a similar attack with biblical passages of the same nature sprayed in the same spot on the front of the building.

Police also say the suspect was behind the threatening notes left outside the home of Prof. Yaakov Malkin, director of Tmura, the International Institute for Humanistic Secular Judaism in January 2016. Graffiti depicting a Star of David and references to biblical passages were sprayed on the fence around Malkin’s house, and an envelope containing a threatening letter and a knife branded with a further biblical reference were also found at the scene, according to police.