A memorial stone at the site of an old Jewish synagogue in the French city of Strasbourg, near the eastern border with Germany, was discovered vandalized.
In a tweet, the city’s Deputy Mayor, Alain Fontanel, showed a picture of the marble slab after it was knocked off its plinth.
He called the attack a “new act of anti-Semitism in our city.”
Thierry Roos, spokesman of the Jewish Consistory, said that ”there is no doubt that it is an intentional act. They wanted to erase the memory of the synagogue by destroying it a second time.”
The old synagogue was burned down by the Nazis in September 1940.
This is the second anti-Semitic act in one month in the region, following the Feb. 19 discovery of swastikas on 80 gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in the village of Quatzenheim, also near the border with Germany. Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were spray-painted on the graves.
In an address to the annual dinner of Crif, the umbrella representative group of Jewish institutions in France, French President Emmanuel Macron announced last month a series of measures to combat the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the country.
He responded to calls from leaders of the Jewish community who urged “concrete measures and not only declarations.”
France has the largest Jewish community in Western Europe, comprised of about 550,000 people.
