Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday condemned as a “serious hate crime” a suspected arson attack on the synagogue belonging to Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, the country’s previous Sephardic chief rabbi.
“The burning of holy books, the spraying of crosses and the attempted burning of Torah scrolls at the Jerusalem synagogue of Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef are deeply shocking,” the head of state tweeted.
“I call for swift and decisive action to investigate this serious hate crime and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Herzog’s statement on X added.
Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, a lawmaker for the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Shas Party, denounced it as an “attack on a national symbol.”
“This morning, I addressed the head of the Shin Bet and demanded their cooperation in investigating the heinous hate crime of arson,” he stated.
Shas head Aryeh Deri instructed that private security be hired for Yosef immediately until the background of the arson becomes clear.
According to Deri, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar informed him that the organization was investigating the fire as nationalistic terrorist attack.
Police and firefighting teams were called to the Or Habib synagogue in northern Jerusalem’s Sanhedria neighborhood on Sunday morning after a fire broke out at the site, the Israel Police said earlier in the day.
In a possibly related incident, shortly before police were alerted to the arson attack, they received a report that a cross was found graffitied inside a nearby apartment building.
Israel’s National Fire and Rescue Authority subsequently announced that “after examining all the findings at the scene of the incident, " it “unequivocally determined” that an arson attack caused the blaze.
Yosef, 73, served as the Sephardic chief rabbi of the Jewish state between 2013 and 2024. Following the end of his term, he joined the leadership of the Shas Party, which was founded by his father, Ovadia Yosef.
