For the third time in recent months, a Northeast Philadelphia synagogue is cleaning up broken glass left by vandals and this time it appears children are behind the rock throwing.
A maintenance worker arrived to Temple Menorah-Keneseth Chai on Tyson Avenue Monday morning to find a broken window and baseball-sized rock inside the decades’ old temple, Philadelphia Police said.
Workers at the temple believe the vandalism took place over the weekend. Surveillance video shows two teens between the ages of 12 and 14 outside the synagogue Sunday shortly after 5 p.m., police said. Investigators treated the incident as a vandalism rather than a hate crime.
The FBI investigated after December and January incidents of vandalism that prompted the Citizens Crime Commission to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the repeated vandalism. The synagogue installed surveillance video after eight windows were broken in the January incident.
No one was injured in any incident. Synagogue President Malcolm Adler claimed the synagogue was also vandalized three to four years ago when someone painted a swastika on an outside wall.
