Nearly a Year After Attempted Yom Kippur Attack, Pandemic Forces Halle Jews out of Synagogue for High Holy Days

"We’d rather be in our synagogue, but this is the most practical solution," the chairman of the community told JTA.

[additional-authors]

Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

September 11, 2020

HALLE, GERMANY – OCTOBER 11: A general view to the Jewish synagogue two days after a shooting left two people dead on October 11, 2019 in Halle, Germany. Stephan Balliet, 27, using home-made weapons, attempted to attack the synagogue during Yom Kippur on October 9. Unable to get in, he shot dead a woman passing by and another man in a kebab shop later on before being wounded by police and apprehended. In a streaming video he sent live during his 104-minute attempted rampage he disparaged Jews, feminists and immigrants and also narrated his increasingly frustrated day in a YouTube-like presentation. Germany has reacted in shock to the attack. (Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

(JTA) — The coronavirus, not the attempted Yom Kippur attack by a gunman nearly a year ago, will keep the Jewish community of Halle, Germany, out of its synagogue for the High Holy Days in 2020.

The congregation will worship at a larger municipal space that’s more suitable for social distancing.

“We are not happy about this, we’d rather be in our synagogue, but this is the most practical solution,” the chairman of the community, Max Privorozki, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The synagogue was full to its capacity of about 100 last October when a white supremacist gunman tried to blast open the building’s armored door on Yom Kippur. He is standing trial for the murder of two people near the synagogue after failing to enter. The gunman filled the killings.

Members of Halle’s Jewish community of about 500 people were “looking forward to spending Yom Kippur and the High Holidays in the synagogue,” Privorozki said.

“Trauma is not an issue – we come there every Shabbat,” he added.

But under the emergency measures for social distancing due to the coronavirus, the building can now only accommodate 19 people.

“I’m not going to choose for my congregants can come to synagogue, so it’s either we move to a new space or we have no space,” Privorozki said.

The community has moved its Torah scroll to the alternative venue, which normally has a capacity of 400 but can now accommodate only 80 people.

Police, who were criticized for not providing security to the synagogue last year, will guard both of the municipal building’s entrance points, Privorozki said.