Skinheads Mark Jewish New Year and Ramadan

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=706981

The last few days have seen several attacks on synagogues and mosques across Russia. Religious leaders blame skinheads for the attacks, which took place on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

On Saturday night, an evening service at a mosque in Yaroslavl marking the beginning of the Ramadan fast was interrupted by a group of young people who threw stones and flaming bottles at the mosque and broke windows in cars parked nearby. No one was hurt in the attack, and the attackers were not caught. That same night in Khabarovsk, a synagogue was attacked by a group of young men, who peppered the building with bricks and pieces of asphalt, breaking several windows, while chanting anti-Semitic slogans. They ran away when security guards appeared from inside the building, and police officers who were called to the scene failed to catch them. A similar incident also took place at a synagogue in Astrakhan a day earlier, where unknown attackers tried to set the building on fire but were foiled by a security guard, who put out the fires.

[rockymountaindem]

1. I never know how to react to this

Half of me thinks that it's bad to have street violence, and we should rely on the authorities, but I certainly wouldn't be upset if these idiot vandals/terrorists? got the crap beat out of them the next morning by aggrieved Jews and/or Muslims. Does that make me a bad person?

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Natural reaction, but

such counter-violence wouldn't put an end to things. There'd be a reaction to that, and so on.

[cool user name]

3. Nope, it doesn't.

It would be nice to see the Jewish and Muslim community united in taking the fight to these assholes.