Firebomb hits former synagogue in Romania

A firebomb thrown into a former synagogue in central Romania caused minor damage, a local Jewish watchdog group said Tuesday.

The firebomb was aimed at the wooden part of the floor of the former synagogue of Sighisoara, the Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism in Romania said in a statement about the recent attack.

The building, which has been converted into a cultural center, is in proximity to the site of an earlier attack in Ploiesti, near Bucharest, where a local synagogue’s windows were shattered when vandals pelted them with stones, wrote the watchdog group’s director, Maximillian Marco Katz.

Police are investigating both incidents.

Katz wrote that violence against Jews and buildings associated with Jews is rare in Romania. He added that “growing anti-Semitism in Hungary, the Hungarian extremism imported into Transylvania and the general growth of the anti-Semitism in Europe” may have triggered the attacks.