German Synagogue Firebombed; Neo-Nazis Suspected : Terrorism: Government, Jewish and church leaders denounce the pre-Passover attack. Reward is offered.

Extremists threw two firebombs into Germany’s oldest synagogue in the northern city of Luebeck on Friday, a day before worshipers were to celebrate Passover services there for the first time since the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938.

Jewish leaders said this was the worst attack on a synagogue since the Third Reich.

No one was injured in the 2 a.m. fire that destroyed a meeting room in the four-story building crowned by a Star of David. The main hall where the sacred scrolls of the Torah are kept was untouched, and 12 people living in apartments above the synagogue escaped unharmed.

Police in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, where Luebeck is located, said they believe that the attack was committed by rightist extremists but that they had no suspects and no leads. They offered a $30,000 reward for information leading to arrests for what they called attempted murder.

“I can’t find words to describe what has happened,” said Heinz Jaeckel, a leader of Luebeck’s 27-member Jewish community. “This is really terrible. It is a day before Passover.”

Bertold Katz, 78, a Holocaust survivor and cantor who fled to safety from his flat above the synagogue, told the Reuters news agency: “There are so few of us left. Are 27 too many?”

Katz lost his mother in a Nazi concentration camp.

Government, Jewish and church leaders denounced the attack, and around midday about 200 Luebeckers marched to the synagogue with banners against racism. Luebeck’s mayor called for a five-minute silence today.

“The German government is shocked by this attack and sharply condemns it,” government spokesman Dieter Vogel said. “The government stands by the Jewish community in Luebeck and elsewhere.”

Also overnight, Molotov cocktails were thrown into a Turkish textile shop in the northern city of Bremen. Seven Germans living in apartments above the store escaped without injury, and police said they could not rule out a political motive in that attack either. Turkish businesses and residents have been the targets of both neo-Nazis and Kurdish separatist militants.

Germany has experienced an increase in neo-Nazi attacks on foreigners and Jews since unification in 1990. The incidents have left 30 people dead, most of them foreign workers. Such attacks, however, had decreased in recent months.

On Friday, German television showed the blackened walls and broken windows of the synagogue in Luebeck with flowers laid outside. Police said the firebombs were thrown into the synagogue through a garden window, but that damage was slight as one of them did not explode. The other ignited an office in front of the main prayer hall.

Police had been patrolling the synagogue frequently since the Hebron massacre in Israel, in which a Jewish settler killed about 30 praying Palestinians, television reported. But Jewish leaders signaled that they believed neo-Nazis were to blame.

The synagogue, founded in 1880, is the only one in the state and was being prepared for Passover services for about 140 Jews from across the state for the first time since it was vandalized during Kristallnacht. On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazi supporters attacked and looted more than 7,000 Jewish stores and burned 267 synagogues throughout Germany, an event that became known as Crystal Night for the broken glass. Luebeck’s temple was not burned because it was next to a museum with a valuable art collection.

Michel Friedman, of Frankfurt’s Jewish community, said the firebomb was the worst attack on a Jewish institution since the Jewish Community Center in Frankfurt was hit by vandals in 1985.

Anti-Semitic attacks are not uncommon in Germany but are usually restricted to graffiti--painting of swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on Jewish graves and synagogues.

But last month, vandals twice attacked an old synagogue in the Ruhr valley city of Essen. One day, vandals threw stones at the temple, breaking 14 windows, and two days later, a firebomb blackened its stone steps.

Ignatz Bubis, leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, blamed extreme right-wing parties for fomenting anti-Semitism and said they must be ostracized.

“How is it possible that things have come this far? And how far will it go?” Bubis asked German television. “Many (Jewish) people are worried whether their decision to live in Germany was a right decision.”

There are about 40,000 Jews in Germany, compared to more than 500,000 before the Holocaust.