ATHENS - Arsonists set fire to a synagogue on the Greek island of Corfu early on Tuesday, damaging prayer books but causing no injuries, in the third such attack in Greece in less than two years, police said.
The arson attack, staged just as the Passover festival was starting, alarmed the country's dwindling Jewish community.
"The door was violated and two empty gasoline canisters were found in the synagogue," said a police officer, who declined to be named. "At least 30 books were damaged in the blaze."
About 150 Jews live on Corfu. The latest attack has alarmed Greece's 8,000-strong community, which was decimated after the Nazis deported Jews to concentration camps in eastern Europe during World War II.
"We are very worried," Moses Constantinis, head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, told Reuters. "We hope the police act quickly and the culprits are found."
In February last year, police arrested three men suspected of setting fire twice to a medieval synagogue on the island of Crete. The roof of the building and thousands of books and computers were damaged.
Source: JPost
Update: 2 arrested on suspicion of setting fire to shul in Greece
"Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts [caves, holes] of the rocks." (Jeremiah 16:16)
