A group of anti-Semitic vandals attacked the car of a Dallas area rabbi.
Rabbi Yaakov Rich leads a group worshiping at his home in Dallas. The neighborhood’s Homeowners Association (HOA) tried to stop the group from having their times of worship and tried to sue the Rabbi to make him stop. A court threw out the case last month.
Last week, the city of Dallas sued him to make improvements to the home if he wants to continue to hold services.
Then he came outside Thursday to find s swastika painted on his car.
“As a Jew, the swastika is the most offensive symbol that there is. They didn’t just attack me, they attacked every Jew in the City of Dallas. I am very grateful, however, that the members of Congregation Toras Chaim are banding together to ensure that there is no disruption in our activities,” Rabbi Rich told CBS Dallas.
Justin Butterfield of the Liberty Institute told CBS Dallas that this is not the first time the group has faced vandalism.
“In orthodox Jewish homes, there is a little box on the doorway with a scroll on it with a scripture on it, and in the past, somebody had ripped that off of the doorway. They’ve also had people drive in front of the home screaming obscenities at them,” said Butterfield.
A Greek Orthodox seminary in Jerusalem was burned Thursday and anti-Christian graffiti was sprayed on a nearby wall.
Police in the area say it’s clearly a hate crime.
The bathroom and corridor of Dormition Abbey was set on fire around 3 a.m. by unknown assailants. As firefighters extinguished the flames, they saw the crudely written graffiti mocking Jesus Christ.
A court has issued a gag-order for most of the details of the crime but a witness shared what they saw about the attack.
“Two people who were hiding their faces came from the east side of the structure near the cemetery and the Catholic church,” he said. “From there they threw flammable liquid at the seminary’s bathroom.”
Israeli President Reuvin Rivlin was outraged by the attack.
“It is inconceivable that an act like this could happen in a house of prayer,” Rivlin said in a statement.
“This is a heinous crime, there must be an investigation and those responsible must be brought to justice. Such criminals not only threaten to set fire to places of worship holy to all of us, but ignite the regional powder keg upon which we all sit.”
A Jewish cemetery in Sarre-Union, France was vandalized over the weekend with more than 300 graves defaced by at least 5 teenagers.
Police say that five teens between 15 and 17 are in custody after the youngest of the group turned themselves into authorities and admitted the crime. The teen is denying there was an anti-Semitic motive despite their targeting a Jewish cemetery.
In addition to knocking over or destroying over 300 tombstones, the teens destroyed a monument to Holocaust victims.
While the youngest perpetrator claims there was no anti-Semitic motive to the crime, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called the actions “a vile, anti-Semitic act, and insult to the memory of the dead.”
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that the actions of the teens were an “odious act against religious freedom and intolerance.”
A Massachusetts woman is under arrest after she vandalized a church and then tried to attack police with a metal crucifix in the same place a church’s nativity scene was vandalized.
The crucifix had been donated after a nearby church was vandalized when a baby Jesus was stolen from their nativity scene and replaced with a severed pig’s head.
Amarellis Cermeno of Haverhill, 54, was arrested on charges including “assault with a deadly weapon, malicious destruction of property and destruction of a place of worship.”
Police were called to La Iglesia Biblica Bautista around 3 p.m. Tuesday after someone had written “666” in large numbers in 15 different places on the church building. Police found Cermeno nearby carrying a large metal crucifix that she used to attack police.
She is being held without bail. She is undergoing mental health evaluations.
A Massachusetts church was in shock Christmas Day to find that someone had stolen the baby Jesus from their nativity scene and replaced it with the severed head of a pig.
Police say that the vandals struck the nativity scene outside Scared Hearts Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts during the early morning hours of Christmas.
Police are investigating the incident on what they called a “busy, well lit street.”
Brenda Burns, a resident of Haverhill, took the baby Jesus from her family’s nativity scene and went to the church to replace the stolen one.
In addition to the stolen Jesus in Haverhill, a second Jesus was stolen in nearby Greenfield. That baby Jesus was imported from Italy and worth over $3,000. The thieves also caused significant damage to the manger in the display.
An admitted Satanist drove his vehicle into the Ten Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma state house, breaking it into pieces.
Michael Reed, Jr., says that Satan told him to destroy the monument and then urinate on it.
Reed destroyed the monument on Thursday and then walked into the Oklahoma City Federal Building on Friday stating that he was going to kill President Obama. He was taken into custody by the Secret Service for the threats.
Reed reportedly was placed into a mental hospital and is being indefinitely detained.
The ACLU, which had been actively trying to remove the monument, issued a condemnation of the action while still attacking Christians and those who support the monument.
“The ACLU of Oklahoma and our clients are outraged at this apparent act of vandalism,” it stated. “Our Oklahoma and federal Constitutions seek to create a society in which people of all faiths and those of no faith at all can coexist as equals without fear of repressions from the government or their neighbors. Whether it is politicians using religion as a political tool or vandals desecrating religious symbols, neither are living up to the full promise of our founding documents.”
Several elected leaders, including Governor Mary Fallin, have said they will pay money from their own pockets to rebuild the monument.
The Jewish fraternity at Emory University holding their Yom Kippur holiday events when someone spray painted Nazi emblems on their home.
Yom Kippur is one of the most holy days in Judiasm, a time when Jews fast and focus on repentance for their sins over the past year.
“We are outraged at the insensitive display of prejudice that occurred at the Alpha Epsilon Pi house at Emory University. We are working alongside Emory to ensure that intolerable acts of hate, such as this, will never occur again. We are thankful for the community around us that has shown tremendous support throughout this time,” the fraternity told Business Insider.
Police are investigating the incident and have increased patrols around the area of the fraternity in case the assailants choose to come back for a second attack.
Emory University President James Wagner e-mailed students and faculty condemning the event.
“On behalf of our community, I denounce this abhorrent act. It is an offense against a Jewish fraternity and the Jewish members of our community, and it is a repugnant, flagrant emblem of anti-Semitism. It is also an offense against the entire university. Among the many pernicious things the swastika symbolizes, in the last century it represented the most egregious and determined undermining of intellectual freedom and truth-seeking. In short, its appearance on our campus is an attack against everything for which Emory stands,” he wrote.
After seven years of harassment, graffiti, sabotage and physical assaults by Muslims, a Christian church has left their building in East Jerusalem.
Calvary Baptist Church moved out of their building in the Shofat area of Jerusalem looking for a safer, permanent home. The Islamists went from threatening the church to threatening the landlord who allowed the church to meet inside his property.
“It was very emotional, because a lot of our people really started to grow there,” Pastor Steven Khoury said. “Most of the growth happened in Shofat because of the persecution.”
The pastor said within 10 days of moving in, a Muslim attempted to stab a church member outside a worship service.
Their playground area was destroyed when Muslims threw molotov cocktails in an attempt to burn down the building.
The church was Pastor Khoury’s second attempt to plant a church in Jerusalem.
An apparent Satanist is burning Bibles on the lands of various churches near Mesa, Arizona.
Police say that the suspect has burned Bibles on six different occasions since May. The Bibles are usually ripped apart before they’re burned and so far there’s been no evidence left behind for police to use in their investigation.
Officials say the incidents are “bias crimes” and that at one of the churches, the arsonist scrawled “Hail Satan” on the church’s gates.
The first burned Bible was found on Mother’s Day at Mesa Baptist Church.
“Mother’s Day morning we were opening up our double doors and as we came out we walked right up on a burned Bible,” Pastor Mark Rice told KSAZ-TV, thinking at first it was a prank. “When it happened [again] a week later, we knew it was intentional.”
The pastor said the “Hail Satan” message was carved into the church gates with a nail or knife in letters three inches high.
Pastor Rice said he hopes that the situation doesn’t turn any more violent or destructive than it has been already.
A statue of the Virgin Mary was taken from its platform, decapitated and thrown on the ground in front of a Knights of Columbus building.
Long Island police say the “Statue of the Blessed Mother” was vandalized sometime between Tuesday lunchtime and Wednesday morning.
“Someone’s got to have hate in their heart,” Knights of Columbus Grand Knight Austin Cannon told CBS New York. “Members equate this to maybe a person of the Jewish faith coming out and finding a swastika on the side of a building. The Blessed Mother is an integral part of our faith, and to find her statue pushed over really upset our members.”
The statue that was destroyed was a replacement for one that was damaged last July by vandals. Police say that three separate Knights of Columbus locations have had statues vandalized in the last year.
The attacks have done nothing to discourage the Knights.
“You can break it as many times as you want,” added Knights of Columbus Deputy Grand Knight James Ruescher. “But at the end of the day it’ll always be bigger and better.”
