Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Azriel Chaikin, chief rabbi of Ukraine, accused government and law enforcement officials of failing to prevent a rash of anti-Semitic attacks in the city, JTA reported on its Web site Wednesday.

He made the charges in a letter just days after an unidentified man broke a window of the town's historic synagogue during afternoon prayers. The man fled the scene and remains on the loose.

In July, Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm, chief rabbi of Zhitomir, was attacked outside of his synagogue on the same day that a group of youth tried to break into a girls' dormitory at a Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish school in the city.

Earlier this month, Rabbi Nochum and Stesya Brocha Tamarin, co-directors of the Zhitomir-based Chabad-Lubavitch of Small Communities, were assaulted near the synagogue.

Officials "either don't have the desire or are incapable of preserving security," wrote Chaikin in his letter, according to JTA. Police "who have taken some steps to patrol the area near the synagogue are unable to offer serious response to anti-Semitic gangs."