CHISINAU, Moldova (WJC)–The Russian Orthodox Church in the former Soviet republic of Moldova has indirectly blamed the Jewish community for the recent anti-Semitic march by Christian fundamentalists in the capital Chisinau in which a public menorah was dismantled.
A church statement said: “We believe that this unpleasant incident could have been avoided if the menorah had been placed near a memorial for victims of the Holocaust.”
On Chanukah, some 200 fundamentalist Christian protestors, led by a priest of the Orthodox Church, marched through Chisinau and removed the 5-foot-tall menorah, using hammers and iron bars from a major downtown square. “The Jews can try to kill us, to traumatize our children, but Moldovan Orthodox believers will resist,” the priest told the crowd, many of whom carried large crosses. Moldova, he said, was an Orthodox country, and Jews were trying to “dominate people.” Allowing the menorah to be set up had been “a sacrilege, an indulgence of state power today.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress