Polish Jewish leaders condemn attack on Warsaw Muslim center

WARSAW, Poland — Leaders of the Polish Jewish community express sympathy with the Muslim community after an attack on a mosque in Warsaw.

On Monday night, rocks and bricks were thrown at the Muslim Cultural Center in Warsaw, smashing the windows of the building. The buildings garden also was destroyed by the vandals. The perpetrators did not get inside the building. Security camera footage show at least two people perpetrating the attack. It is not the first time the mosque has been targeted.

Warsaw’s Muslim community is made up of about 22,000 people and there are two mosques in the city. About 500 people come to pray in the cultural center’s mosque, community leaders told local media.

In a letter to mufti Tomasz Miśkiewicz, Leslaw Piszewski, president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, and Polish chief rabbi Michael Schudrich condemn the “increasing tendency of aggressive verbal and physical attitudes towards cultural and religious minorities in Poland in recent times.”

— JTA