A Jewish community in Ukraine has said that nationalist groups were seeking to thwart the construction of a synagogue after crosses were erected on the site. The rabbi of the southern city of Poltava said a group of nationalist activists had put up seven wooden Orthodox crosses on land allocated by local authorities for the synagogue. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Segal told the 'Associated Press' news agency that this was a provocation aimed at stirring religious hatred in the city. No group has claimed responsibility so far. Before the Holocaust, nearly 20 per cent of Poltava's 100,000 population was Jewish, according to Segal. The population of the city in east-central Ukraine has since grown to 300,000, but only 3,000 - or 1 per cent - are Jews.
Meanwhile, several windows were shattered in an attack on the synagogue in Rovno, in northwestern Ukraine, as vandals threw stones at the synagogue. No one was hurt, and the attackers fled before police arrived. Law enforcement agencies are investigating. Rabbi Shneur Shneerson, the local rabbi, said he believed the attack could have been in response to Sunday's City Council elections. But Gennady Fraerman, chairman of the Rovno Jewish community, told JTA that he believed it was an act of hooliganism since windows were also broken on two nearby buildings.
Jewish groups have repeatedly complained that anti-Semitism persists in Ukraine and there is little respect for Jewish cemeteries and memorial sites.
