German police in attendance at a synagogue in Hanover after a window was smashed during Yom Kippur services. Photo: Screenshot.

Police in Germany are investigating a possible antisemitic attack on a synagogue in the city of Hanover during services for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, on Wednesday.

The incident took place at 7pm on Wednesday night as up to 200 worshipers marked the solemn holiday. Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang as a window was smashed from the outside.

No one was hurt in the attack, Arkady Litvan, a member of the synagogue’s board of directors, told local media outlets, and the service continued after police were alerted.

“We won’t let these lunatics bother us,” Litvan said.

On Thursday, police had no fresh information about the attack, having failed to establish a motive or find the alleged perpetrator. A police spokeswoman said that all avenues of inquiry were being actively pursued, and that the situation was complicated by the absence of security cameras in the vicinity of the synagogue.

Assaults on synagogues and other institutions are watched nervously in Germany, three years after a Yom Kippur gun attack on a synagogue in Halle by a neo-Nazi gunman ended with two people murdered. The gunman, Stephan Balliet, was sentenced to life in prison in Dec. 2020 following a harrowing four-month trial.

Politicians and Jewish officials quickly condemned the incident in Hanover. According to Michael Furst, the chair of the Hanover community, if it was an attack, it would be the first of its kind in the city.

Stephan Weil — the prime minister of Lower Saxony, the state of which Hanover is the capital — said that the authorities stood “firmly by the side of our Jewish citizens.”

Justice Minister Barbara Havliza declared that “regardless of who smashed the window, regardless of the motive: This attack on the highest Jewish holiday, three years after the terror in Halle and on the fenced-in area of ​​the synagogue, is an ugly sign of the increasing antisemitism in our country.”

Antisemitic outrages in Germany rose precipitously in 2021, with a 30 percent increase in attacks targeting Jews, according to data released by the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

The data showed that 3,028 antisemitic crimes were recorded in 2021, with incidents involving violence rising as a proportion of the total.