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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 11/03
Fire And Broken Glass: The Rise of Antisemitism in Europe
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
August 2002
Abstract
On July 12, the online wire of the Associated Press included a story out of the Welsh city of Swansea, where a synagogue had been vandalized the night before. According to the story, which was not picked up by any major American newspaper, a group of youths broke into the synagogue, destroyed one of the temple’s Torah scrolls, drew a swastika on the wall, and attempted to burn the building down before fleeing.
The Swansea break-in, the second such vandalism of a British synagogue in three months, is being investigated by local authorities as a hate crime a crime driven by anti- Jewish animus. This desecration of synagogues occurred within a broader pattern of anti-Jewish attacks in Britain and across Europe. In April 2002 alone the Jewish community in Britain reported fifty-one incidents nationwide, most of them assaults on individuals.
