Anti-Semitic Slogans, Swastikas Painted On French Synagogue
Image by Getty Images
Vandals painted anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas on a synagogue in the French city of Verdun but failed to break in.
Congregants discovered the vandalism on Saturday morning, Jean Blacharz, the local community’s vice president, told the L’Est Républicain daily. He added that the incident was the first of its kind in recent memory in Verdun, in northeast France.
“I am speechless, shocked and outraged at this incident,” Blacharz said.
Two black swastikas were drawn on a relief shaped like the Tablets of Testimony that adorns the synagogue’s entrance. “Screw the Jews” and another profanity were written on an exterior wall.
The vandals also kicked open an outer door, but were unable to enter the more sturdy portal behind it.
Police are investigating the incident and have placed extra security around the small community’s house of worship.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
