German chancellor Olaf Scholz has strongly condemned the firebombing of a synagogue in Berlin, saying “we will never accept when attacks are carried out against Jewish institutions”.
Assailants threw two incendiary devices at the synagogue in the centre of the capital early on Wednesday morning, police said, as anti-Semitic incidents in the country have been rising following the escalating violence in the Middle East.
The Kahal Adass Jisroel community wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Unknown persons threw two Molotov cocktails from the street.”
Dozens of police officers were investigating in front of the synagogue in the Mitte area of the city, and the entire street next to the building was cordoned off and closed to traffic.
Police said they are investigating “an attempted serious arson” in which two people approached the synagogue on foot at 3.45am and threw two Molotov cocktails, which exploded on the pavement next to the building. The attackers, their faces covered, ran away.
— Kahal Adass Jisroel (@KAJ_Berlin) October 18, 2023
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A couple of hours later, as police were already investigating the incident, a 30-year-old man approached the synagogue on a scooter, threw it aside and tried running towards the building.
When police officers detained him, he resisted and shouted anti-Israeli slogans.
Germany’s leading Jewish group, the Central Council of Jews, said in a statement: “We are all shocked by this terrorist attack.
“Above all, the families from the neighbourhood around the synagogue are shocked and unsettled. Words become deeds. Hamas’ ideology of extermination against everything Jewish is also having an effect in Germany.”
Advertisement— Kahal Adass Jisroel (@KAJ_Berlin) October 18, 2023
The building complex of the Kahal Adass Jisroel community in the centre of Berlin houses a synagogue, a nursery school, a yeshiva school and a community centre.
Police also said there were riots overnight between Muslim immigrants and police in the city’s Neukoelln and Kreuzberg neighbourhoods and at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate, in which several officers were injured.
Mr Scholz, speaking to reporters during a trip to Egypt on Wednesday, said Germany will not accept violent and antisemitic protests and that the protection of Jewish institutions will be further increased.
“It outrages me personally what some of them are shouting and doing, and I am convinced that Germany’s citizen are of the same opinion as me,” he said.
“We stand united for the protection also of Jews,” he added.
Shlomo Afanasev, a rabbi and long-time member of the Kahal Adass Jisroel community, said he was shocked by the attack.
“I go to the synagogue since 2006, and … I always go with my kippah on,” he told the Associated Press. “We felt until today very safe here. And never thought something like this could happen in this area. In the middle of Berlin.”
Mr Afanasev added that he will wear a baseball hat from now on to cover his skullcap because “I don’t want to be openly Jewish … outside, because it doesn’t feel safe anymore. Unfortunately.”
Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7th and the subsequent war in Gaza, police have increased security for Jewish institutions in Berlin and all over Germany.
Nevertheless, Israeli flags that were flown as a sign of solidarity in front of city halls all over the country have been torn down and burned.
Several buildings in Berlin where Jews live had the star of David painted on doors and walls.
