There have been in the past incidents of young, non-Jewish Russian guys doing things like this. Whoever they are, I hope they are caught quickly and given re-education; that is, they should be required to attend classes and, perhaps, even be made to do work with Holocaust survivors, or something like that. Prison won't solve anything.

Please fit burglar alarms- problem solved.END

This is clearly not the work of an ideologically-motivated group of neo-Nazis. The swastikas, graffitied the wrong way round, attest to this. It 's most probably the work of bored and ignorant youths, vandalizing just in order to provoke. They obviously succeeded.

Maybe it was a faction from the Falun Gong. The backwards swastika is one of the cult's symbols.

If this had happed in a mosque, it would be the spark that would eventually lead to WWIII

Swastikas are not only the expressions of hate but, after WWII, an open threat, regardless if drawn correctly or not. The fact that any Jew should be thus threatened in his own country is outrageous. The fact that the readers minimize this act of hatred is even more telling. The same readers who had been jumping up and down over a pigs head in a mosques courtyard are not overly bothered by the fact that anybody would not only desecrate their synagogue, but do so by using a symbol of the political entity responsible for the Jewish Holocaust, thus making it a threat. The "youths" should not be reeducated, they should be expelled from the country since obviously they do not like living among the Jews. And the Israeli Jews should not resign themselves to the acceptance of anti-Semitism in the country created for the very purpose of making them safe from anti-Semitism.

If they ever catch these lowlifes, I would send them back to their country of origin because their brand of hatred should not be welcome in the State of Israel. You picked the wrong country, boys.

I hate to say this but this is not a big news. Years ago, some Russian Jews have been crying outloud over the growing number of non-Jews who come to Israel and continue to harrass Jews there. in fact there is an entire website dedicated to that. I don't know who did it, but it smells like the work of skinheads. Last year they caught a russian neo-nazi in the army. The solution to this is quite simple: amend the Law of Return. But this of course will offend secular Zionist sensibilities. The religious parties have been demanding it for too long, and to no avail. Now we consume the fruits of our labour.

Try to imagine if it happened in london or in paris! the comments, the insults, the ''of course''... sorry but the life is more complicated than black (us) and white (you)...

First of all, this is utterly outrageous. It makes me so angry that I'd break the bones of these sons of bitches myself, and with much gusto, too. #1, forget reeducation; #7 has the right idea: deport this scum after confiscating all their possessions to help pay for the cleanup of their shit. #4: the original swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol of peace and of the life/death cycle. But this act has nothing to do with Hinduism and I highly doubt it's much to do with Falun Gong either. #8: As a secular Zionist, amending the Law of Return to make it impossible or extremely difficult for goyim to gain residence in the Medinah would not offend me in the slightest. Israel is the homeland of Jews and there should be no place in it for lowlives such as the perpetrators of this act--even if they're Jewish.

These people know exactly what they were doing. Ask their leader Roman Bronfman from Meretz. These are professional terrorists and they know very well that they have support (like other "crazy" terrorists) among Meretz and Shinui (now some Kadima) voters.

if this incidant had happened in london or paris , jews would be condeming all of the french and or the english and my question is should we start to condem all the jews in the so called israel ?

This is most certainly the work of Palestinians who don't want to risk being killed in battle by getting a gun, and don't trust n becoming Shahids. Muslim and especially Arab hatred for Jews is extremely well known, and they themselves call for the slaughter of all Israel's Jews, it is most obvious who threatened the synogogue.

By bringing half -Jews and than telling them that they are not Jews at all unless they become Orthodox through conversion, a difficult and not the most appealing prospect, you created non-Jews out of the people who previously identified as such. It wasn't very smart. Since only a minority of Jews is Orthodox, while should they control the conversion and why to alienate people who wanted to be Jewish, are Jewish in an ethnic sense and were brought into the country as Jews. Why not hold the door wide open for them in stead of slamming it in their faces. Same happened in the US with William Cohen and Barry Goldwater when they walked away from Jewish identity, in which they were originally brought up, after being rejected. Frankly, no other religion does that. The fruit of your labor could be a very exclusive, but so tiny as to be inconsequential, private club of Judaism. The question is, can Israel afford it?

These people do not even think about conversion to Judaism. Shinui is out but these are Shinui voters. Are you going to convert people that believe in in Shinui, Lapid, Beilin and other gods? let us not joke. They hate Jews even stronger than Lapid.

Barry Goldwater and Wm. Cohen were raised as Christians by their Christian mothers. So was Caspar Weinberger. In most cases these people went out of their way to screw Israel, so take your "non-Orthodox" naches and enjoy it somewhere else. We all know who is a Jew: someone who will have Jewish grandchildren. I'm sure the others would be happier elsewhere and with names changed--and we'd be happier too.

So you're saying sincere folks who really, really want to be Jewish and are full of love for the people and the nation , but are given a hard time converting, become flaming anti-Semites, ready to kill all the Jews and destroy their country and their religion? Well, gosh, hurry up and convert them all right away, before someone gets hurt!

First of all, I am not talking about people that are half-Jewish you describe. You are right people whose fathers were Jewish are not classified as Jews according to Halacha. Neither of course are non-Jewish spouses of Jews. For those of them that identified as Jews in FSU, I feel a lot of compassion, but if they really feel they are Jewish, they should go through conversion just as many of my friends did in this situation. It is their choice-the problem that many of them want to be Jews in the name but not in practice. Judaism is a belief system, not just an ethnicity, and we have standards we have to live by. That's besides the point though. Law of Return has a grandfather clause to it that has been very widely abused. Many total non-Jews came to the country on the forged documents. Part of it is a result of Jewish Agency policy to just increase aliah numbers at all costs. Some of these people are openly anti-semitic. I used to go to high school in Ukraine with one kid whose grandfather is Jewish, but the kid used to say that if he went to Israel he would join the arab army. The story is that he ended up in Israel and I doubt that he likes Jews very much. But I know for the fact that he ripped all the benefits of Israeli society, such as free higher education. The website I was referring to described harassment of russian Jewish kids who were called jids (equivalent of kike) in an Israeli school. Needless to say, they did not leave russia to go to Israel to be called jids. So it is not about turning people away or rejecting them. The truth is that if they want to be genuinely be a part of Jewish people, it is incumbent upon them to live as Jews in practice not just in name of it. Thus amending L of R is about protecting ourselves against enemies and fraud committed in order to gain access to Jewish money and the opportunities of Israel. to #10. I am glad we agree. However, secular zionist parties do not. In fact Sharon himself was against any changes to L of R. So was Sharansky, etc. But bigger does not mean better as we can see. and the reality is that it seems this policy is driven by desire to just get more people here to outnumber arabs. I think this policy is rather short sighted. We see the early fruits of it already.

By the way, with over a million additional Russian Jews coming to the US, there are fewer Jews now in the US than 40 years ago. And as the Jews in the US keep disappearing , the Muslims increase. Speaking about hurt? The possibility for you is rather real, once you become a minority at home and completely insignificant in the US. At some point you will make Judaism such an exclusive club, that it may become quite an empty, beautiful building. open the door and let some air in.

Since those people are already in Israel, they should be raised Jewish or if they exhibit anti-Semitic tendencies, should be led to the door and helped on the way out. But frankly, I don't see many accepting Orthodox Judaism as a way of life. If the Orthodox Judaism is not the only way of life for the majority of Jews worldwide, wide should it be the only way in Israel, where I have noticed most people are not Orthodox. What's more, those who are half Jewish and the non-Jewish spouses should be embraced so they want to become Jews and not be pushed into the direction of the nearest church or mosque. Yes, after reading this newspaper, I realize that quite a few Russian women end up in mosques, instead of synagogues -- there must be a reason for that.

I do not understand some people here. These people from Russia are not Jews and the don't want to be Jews. They hate Jews. They not even thinking about conversions. They came to Israel to make money. That's all. They can't go to US to make money (you must enter via Mexico). The Israel took them because Burg thought that they will vote for Labor (he was rep. in Russia). But then Lapid took them. They hate everything Jewish, everything, like the children of some Israeli politicians even more so.

I do not agree. First of all, the fact that the majority of Jews today does not keep Halacha does not justify the fact that we should say this is OK and we do not need any standards to be considered Jewish. For starters, in three generations, the halachically observant Jews will likely constitute a much higher proportion of Jewish people-look at all the demographic statistics and the relative birth rates. As far as I am concerned Halacha was around for 3,300 years and suddenly there is no need to change it. Orthodox Jews will never recognize non-halachic conversions and if they are allowed in Israel, Orthodox Jewry will have its own population registry and this will be the end of "intermarriage" among religious and non-religious Jews or their descendants. I do not think anyone sees this is a desirable outcome. Having said this, Israel is a democratic country and there should be no discrimination against non-Jews. But unless they accept upon themselves the full yoke of Judaism, there is absolutely no reason for them to be Jewish. But what i do agree with is that the conversion process in Israel is politicized and needs to be made more compassionate and more accepting. What we need is more compassionate and understanding rabbis. This is already happening under leadership of Rabbi Chaim Druckman at PM office.

In the book, Muslim terrorists plant a nuclear bomb in the US. However, the book is entirely rewritten for the movie and neo-nazis are used to plant the nuke. To anyone following modern events, which do you believe? Muslims drew the nazi signs on the synogogue. It's obvious. They are today's nazis, no matter how hard anyone tries to not believe it.

the graffiti could be the name of a german band called ramstein

i can tell you this was teenagers looking for some fun, real nazis would burn the place down with people in it

i don't think that it were nazis, or even rammstein fans..look at the swastikas, the ends are hooked to left, not to right.. and second thing, the band's name is rammstein, not ramsstin :)

First off, so that no-one will misunderstand where I stand, I think that these are hate-filled, violent, criminal scum of the worst kind, and they deserve the full penalty of law. In the video it is stated that there is no law against being a Nazi in Israel? Certainly I hope there are laws against graffiti, even more so against desecrating a synagogue, and especially against desecrating a Torah scroll. It has been many days since I first saw this video, and it still makes me ill to think of such a thing. Question 1: Why use the music of the German band, Rammstein in the video? Question 2: Were the vandals in fact verified to be Christians? Question 3: Is there any provision for a probationary period in the Law of Return? שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם James