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July 14, 2000/11 Tammuz 5760, Vol. 52, No.44
Vandals strike Reform campus
AVI MACHLIS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Vandals struck the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College in Israel this week, smashing glass windows and doors and spray-painting the word "Satan" in black letters on the ground.
Thursday's attack on the institute was the second on the HUC after a door was smashed there a few weeks ago.
It was also the fifth recent attack on a non-Orthodox institution, the most serious being the torching of a Conservative synagogue in Jerusalem last week.
"This has become a wave," said Motti Inbari, spokesman for the Reform movement in Israel. "There is a connection between the incidents."
Reform officials notified the police and said no suspects have yet been apprehended. However, they said, night workers on the scene said men dressed in haredi, or fervently Orthodox, garb were seen nearby before the attack.
"These acts, which seek to curtail freedom of religious expression, undermine democratic rule," said Rabbi David Rosen, the modern Orthodox director of the Anti-Defamation League's Israel office.
The burning of the Ya'ar Ramot Conservative synagogue last week sparked a landmark condemnation from Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Israel's Orthodox Ashkenazic chief rabbi.
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