Moscow/Washington, DC-- Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, Maryland has collected $7,500 to pay for a security system to protect a synagogue in Kostroma, Russia thanks to the leadership of its Yad L’ Yad chair Claire Marwick (Yad l’ Yad is UCSJ’s partnership program of humanitarian and cultural assistance). This sum will cover the cost of an alarm system and half the cost of a fence that will surround the synagogue’s property. The synagogue, the victim of an unsolved arson attack in July 2001, has been repeatedly vandalized in recent months and late last year was robbed by knife-wielding thugs. UCSJ and its partners continue to seek funding for the remaining cost of a complete security system.

“Claire Marwick is an inspiration to all of us who work with the Yad l’ Yad project,” said Marillyn Tallman-Vice President of UCSJ and Co-Chair of its Yad l’ Yad project. “The result of her deep concern for her fellow Jews in Kostroma will be that their synagogue will finally get the protection it needs. We commend Claire and her synagogue for this mitzvah.”

Last month, the Chief Rabbi of Russia Beryl Lazar and UCSJ sent a joint letter to Governor Viktor Shershunov of Kostroma Oblast, located to the north-east of Moscow, expressing alarm at the local authorities’ inaction in the face of physical and verbal attacks on Jews by neo-Nazi activists of Russian National Unity (RNU). The letter called upon Governor Shershunov to take action to ensure that local police mount serious investigations of recent incidents of antisemitic violence and that the RNU’s illegal recruitment of new members in schools be stopped.

Kostroma Jewish leader Andrey Osherov-a member of Rabbi Lazar’s Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR) and UCSJ’s antisemitism monitor in the region-requested help from UCSJ earlier this year after a rash of attacks against the synagogue.

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