A disused London synagogue was the site of an arson attack early Tuesday, police said, adding to a string of incidents targeting Jews and Jewish sites in the city.
The Metropolitan Police said its officers responded to a call at 5:15 a.m. local time about a fire set outside the Nelson Street Synagogue in London’s East End, once home to a large community of Jewish immigrants.
The synagogue closed in 2020. A Muslim group announced earlier this year that it had put down a deposit to buy the building and turn it into a mosque and education center.
The fire was quickly extinguished, causing no injuries and only light damage to the building’s gates and lock, the police said, adding that counter terrorism officials would pick up the investigation.
“We are taking this incident extremely seriously and we will be working closely with colleagues from Counter Terrorism Policing to support the investigation,” Brittany Clarke, the detective chief superintendent responsible for the area, said in a statement. “The building targeted has not been operational as a synagogue for some years but that will be of little comfort to the Jewish community in Tower Hamlets, Hackney and beyond, who are first in my thoughts this morning.”
The fire fits into a pattern that has rocked London’s Jewish communities in recent weeks, with a series of arsons at synagogues causing little damage but great concern. Police have arrested dozens of people they say are connected to the incidents or otherwise pose threats to Jewish communities, some of whom they have accused of spying on or acting against London Jews on behalf of the Iranian regime. A new group that is seen as affiliated with the regime has claimed responsibility for some of the incidents, as well as others elsewhere in Europe.
A stabbing of two Jewish men in the Orthodox neighborhood of Golders Green last week is also being investigated as an act of terrorism.
The incident at the Nelson Street Synagogue was first reported by the Jewish security organization Shomrim. The group said an initial review of security footage showed that the fire was set deliberately, adding that it would step up its patrols in the area.
The East End was a hub of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century but saw its Jewish population migrate to other parts of London, including the northwest where most of the recent arson incidents have occurred, more recently.
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