A radical slogan was painted over a Barcelona synagogue on April 16, only days before Holocaust Remembrance Day.
According to a statement from the local Jewish community, Barcelona’s Grand Maimonides Synagogue was vandalised on Sunday evening, ahead of the Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 17-18 and on the same day that Barcelona’s Jewish community held an event to honour the memories of those lost in the Holocaust.
The incident was caught on camera, reports the Jerusalem Post.
„Three people have painted a slogan that Arab radicalism has traditionally used to demand that the Jewish people living in Israel be thrown into the sea,” said the statement.
The incident was reported to the police along with the security camera footage of the event. The graffiti was promptly removed.
„The place of prayer of the Jews of Barcelona [was] attacked because of the events that happen in Israel,” explained the community statement. „Blaming Jews, in general, and, in this case, the Jews of Catalonia, for the policies of the government of the State of Israel is an obvious example of antisemitism.”
The Grand Maimonides Synagogue, which opened in 1952, was the first new synagogue to be built in the Iberian Peninsula since 1492 when the Jews were expelled from Spain.
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, responded to the vandalism by saying that „the irresponsible decision of the mayor of Barcelona to unilaterally sever relations with the State of Israel has put the Jewish community in the city in real danger,” referring to the decision of Barcelona’s Mayor Ada Colau to sever ties with its former twin city Tel Aviv, claiming that Israel is guilty of „apartheid.”
More News
