JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Tel Aviv synagogue apparently was vandalized in protest of Israel’s nation-state bill.
“In a place where the Jewish State bill will be legislated, books will be burned,” read the graffiti painted Sunday on a wall of the Tel Aviv International Synagogue.
A pile of burned books — none of them religious texts — were left next to the wall.
The vandalism occurred hours after an Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem was set on fire.
“It is ironic and shocking that they targeted a synagogue, where every perspective is respected and welcomed and where Jews are taught to love each other regardless of their political views,” the synagogue’s rabbi, Ariel Konstantyn, originally of New York, said in a statement.
Konstantyn said he believes the attack was perpetrated by left-wing activists and called it a “clear act of anti-Semitism.”
The bill proclaiming Israel as the state of the Jewish people comes before the Knesset for a first reading in early December.
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