World Jewish News
Lithuanian Prime Minister condemns synagogue pig's head attack
25.08.2010, Anti-Semitism Lithuania's Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius on Wednesday condemned an apparent neo-Nazi attack in which a pig's head was left at the entrance of a synagogue.
"Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius welcomes the police investigation of the anti-Semitic provocation in Kaunas and hopes it will be successful, with the perpetrators found and punished," a government statement said.
The pig's head was found on Saturday -- the Jewish holy day -- outside a synagogue in Lithuania's second city of Kaunas.
The use of a pig is particularly offensive because Judaism, like Islam, considers the animal unclean and bars the consumption of pork.
Lithuanian-Jewish leaders had on Monday dubbed the act a "Nazi provocation".
Lithuania was once home to a thriving Jewish community of 220,000, with the capital Vilnius a cultural hub known as the "Jerusalem of the North".
But 95 percent of Lithuania's Jews perished during the country's 1941-1944 German occupation at the hands of the Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators.
Today there are around 5,000 Jews in Lithuania, of whom around 500 live in Kaunas, according to Lithuanian-Jewish community organisations.
EJP
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