Ongoing interethnic violence in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan hit the nation’s small Jewish community over the New Year’s holiday of Rosh Hashanah when an explosion threw shrapnel throughout the courtyard of the central synagogue in Bishkek.
According to Rabbi Arye Raichman, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in the capital who leads services at the synagogue and runs the city’s sole Jewish school, unknown attackers threw an improvised explosive device over the fence of the Jewish community’s compound Thursday evening, just a half-hour before worshippers were to gather for a celebratory feast.
“If it had happened a short while later,” said Raichman, “it could have been tragic.”
The rabbi said that only five people were in the building with him at the time; damage, largely inflicted by improvised shrapnel, including nails, screws, bolts and copper balls, was confined to the courtyard.
Police cordoned off the area and the city’s Jewish residents took their holiday celebrations to another location.
The attack follows an attempted firebombing of Raichman’s Chabad House back in April.
Then, authorities attributed the vandalism to an outbreak of violence associated with the overthrow of the nation’s president and the formation of a provisional government.
Home to just 2,000 Jews, the predominantly Muslim ex-Soviet republic has historically been a safe place for religious minorities to call home.
Raichman said that people are scared.
“The community has taken it very hard,” he stated. “There was never a terrorist incident like this before.”
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