Warsaw synagogue hit with apparent firebomb attack

Warsaw's main synagogue was attacked with firebombs early on Wednesday by an unknown perpetrator, but sustained minimal damage and nobody was hurt, Poland's chief rabbi said.

The incident was strongly condemned by political leaders.

The attack on the Nożyk Synagogue happened around 1 am, Rabbi Michael Schudrich told The Associated Press.

He said the synagogue was hit with three firebombs or Molotov cocktails and only sustained minimal damage "by tremendous luck or miracle".

A blackened area that appeared to be the result of flames could be seen at one spot on the building.

Polish police are working on identifying the perpetrators. "This is our priority at the moment," Deputy Commissioner Jacek Wiśniewski from the Warsaw Police Headquarters told the local media.

Climate of fear

Poland's President Andrzej Duda wrote on X that he condemned "the shameful attack," saying, "There is no place for antisemitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!"

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski noted that the incident fell on the 20th anniversary of Poland joining the European Union along with nine other countries, most of them Central European nations that had been under the Soviet sphere of influence for decades.

"Thank God no one was hurt. I wonder who is trying to disrupt the anniversary of our accession to the EU," Sikorski wrote on X. "Maybe the same ones who scribbled Stars of David in Paris?"

France said last year that it had been the target of a Russian online destabilisation campaign that used automated social media accounts to whip up controversy and confusion about spray-painted Stars of David that appeared on Paris streets and fed alarm about surging antisemitism in France during the Israel-Hamas war.

Poland, which until the Holocaust was the home of Europe's largest Jewish population, numbering some 3.3 million, is now home to a mere few thousand Jewish residents.