RUSSIAN SYNAGOGUES VANDALIZED

Synagogues In Russia Vandalized (NYSun)
"Two synagogues were vandalized in attacks nearly at the start of the Jewish New Year Friday, highlighting rising xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Russia. No one was reported injured," the AP reports.

Unknown assailants threw a Molotov cocktail at a synagogue in the Volga River city of Astrakhan in southern Russia, setting its door ablaze. A guard at the building quickly put down the fire, the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a district prosecutor Sergei Knizhnikov as saying ...

In a pre-dawn attack on the synagogue in Khabarovsk, a city of 580,000 on the border with China, attackers shattered windows in the empty building, the regional department of the Interior Ministry said. A criminal investigation was launched into the attack ...

Russia has seen a marked rise in xenophobia and hate crimes in recent years that rights groups say is fueled in part by the authorities' reluctance to crack down on hate crimes and tackle growing nationalism.