Police name suspect in Ra’anana Reform synagogue vandalism

Ro’i Efrati, 39, from Bnei Brak is the suspect arrested earlier today on suspicion of a string of hate crimes, including the repeated vandalizing of a Reform synagogue in Ra’anana and threatening notes outside the Jerusalem home of a prominent Israeli ethicist and atheist, police say.

Efrati allegedly carried out the hate crimes in 2014-2016 out of a religious motive, police say.

The Kehilat Ra’anan synagogue in Ra’anana saw graffiti spray-painted on it in 2014 and 2016 and envelopes containing death threats against senior leaders in the Reform movement left outside of the building along with a knife branded with scriptural references.

Police also say Efrati 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.