Warsaw, Poland — Warsaw’s main synagogue was firebombed overnight by an unknown perpetrator, but suffered minimal damage and no one was injured, Poland’s chief rabbi said on Wednesday. The incident was strongly condemned by political leaders.
The attack on the Nożyk Synagogue happened around 1 a.m., the country’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, told the Associated Press. He said the synagogue was hit by three firebombs, or Molotov cocktails, and suffered minimal damage “through tremendous luck or miracle.”
A black area that appeared to be the result of flames could be seen in one part of the building.
Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote in X that he condemned “the shameful attack”, saying: “There is no place for anti-Semitism in Poland!
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski noted that the incident occurred on the 20th anniversary of Poland’s accession to the European Union along with nine other countries, most of them Central European nations that had been under the Soviet sphere of influence for decades.
“Thank God no one was injured. I wonder who is trying to disrupt the anniversary of our EU membership,” Sikorski wrote in X. “Maybe the same ones who scribbled the Stars of David in Paris?”
France said last year it had been the target of a Russian online destabilization campaign that used automated social media accounts to generate controversy and confusion over spray-painted Stars of David that appeared on the streets of Paris and fueled alarm over the rise. of anti-Semitism in France during the Israel-Hamas war.
Poland, which until the Holocaust was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe, with around 3.3 million inhabitants, now has a few thousand Jewish inhabitants in its population.
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