RIO DE JANEIRO —Brazilian Jewish community leaders denounced an arson ttack against a synagogue in Pelotas, a city in southern Brazil, as “an insult to democracy and freedom of speech and religion,” and called for the federal authorities for action against the perpetrators.
Unknown people set fire to the synagogue’s main entrance in southern Brazil after painting threats to the Jewish community on its walls and pro-Palestinian slogans.
“It is alarming that the tension in the Middle East translates into an attack on the Brazilian Jewish community. We have contacted the police authorities responsible for investigating and punishing the perpetrators of this criminal act of violence and religious intolerance,” said Fernando Lottenberg, president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, the country’s umbrella Jewish organization.
This was the third recent attack on the synagogue. Some 70 Jewish families live in Pelotas.