Missile Strikes Near Shul in Kherson Damaging Building

A Russian missile exploded near the Ukrainian city of Kherson’s main synagogue this weekend, severely damaging the building in a city already ravaged by two years of relentless war.

By Anash.org reporter

A missile launched from Russia over the weekend towards Kherson in southern Ukraine caused damage to the synagogue building in the city.

The chief rabbi of Kherson and Chabad shliach, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Wolff said that many pieces of shrapnel hit the courtyard and the building of the synagogue and caused minor damage.

“The whole yard of the synagogue is filled with these shrapnel pieces,” said Rabbi Wolff, “and the shrapnel is also stuck in the walls of the synagogue. After the missile exploded in the air, there are 8,000 such shrapnel pieces scattered from the missile and the synagogue was hit by hundreds of these.”

Kherson is one of the most bombed cities in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. It was even occupied during the first period of the war, but the Russians abandoned it a few months later and have not stopped shelling it since then.

In the shadow of the many attacks in the last month, the Jewish community in Slavita in the west of the country also reported that the local synagogue was hit by a large fragment of a Russian rocket that destroyed the ceiling of the building. Dozens of Jews currently live in Slavita and it has a rich Jewish historical past and the famous printing house of the Shapira brothers operated there.

As previously reporter, during the war, several synagogues in Ukraine were damaged by Russian attacks, including the synagogue in Kharkov, the historical synagogue in Bakhmut and also the synagogue in Mariupol which was completely destroyed. Jewish cemeteries and memorials, such as in Kiev and in the town of Hlukhiv near Sumy in the north of the country, have been damaged in the past by Russian projectiles and shells.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine (FJCU), the umbrella organization that unites the approximately 180 communities in the country, said: “The vicious Russian attacks continue unabated and the world has almost forgotten the unimaginable reality we face. Our social workers and psychologists are in contact with the heads of the communities in Ukraine to provide a maximum response to every request.”