The U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Bill White, condemned the attack on a synagogue in the city of Liège, east of Belgium, which took place overnight Sunday to Monday.
An explosion occurred shortly before 4:00 a.m. in front of the synagogue. It did not cause any injuries but caused damages to the building which was built in 1899. Belgian Inteior Minister Bernard Quintin described the attack against the synagogue as a “despicable anti-Semitic act.” In a post on X, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said that ”antisemitism is an attack on our values and our society, and we must fight it unequivocally.”
The U.S. ambassador visited the site on Monday and meet with the city mayor, the rabbi of the synagogue and leaders of the local Jewish community.
Describing the explosion as an anti-Semitic attack against Belgium’s Jewish community, White said that his country “unconditionally supports the Jewish community’s right to practice its faith without intimidation.”
Around 500 Jews live in Liège.
The European Commission also strongly condemned the “anti-Semitic attack,” wrote European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Magnus Brunner.
“We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and support the police in their efforts to protect places of worship,” he added on X.
At Unia, the Belgian Interfederal Center for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism and Discrimination, the attack on a synagogue leaves no room for doubt. It is an act “that falls under anti-Semitism,” said Director Patrick Charlier. Unia points out that this is the second such act in Liège in a relatively short period of time, following the desecration last September of the grave of Jean Gol, a former leader of the French-speaking Liberal party, who was Jewish.
“It’s not good to be Jewish in Belgium today,” Unia said in September when the organization was asked to comment on the rise of anti-Semitism in Belgium following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Unia regularly publishes statistics on anti-Semitism in Belgium. The new figures for 2025 have just been released. “We are seeing a relatively high number of reports and cases opened for anti-Semitism compared to previous years,” said Patrick Charlier.
In 2025, Unia received a total of 192 reports of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. There were 270 in 2024. However, 70 cases were opened based on the reports received, which is almost as many as the 79 cases opened in 2024. 2024 and 2025 are “two record years,” explains Patrick Charlier. In 2022, for example, only 31 cases were opened.
COOJB, the representative body of Jewish organizations, said ”this new attack must serve as an urgent wake-up call for the authorities to move from words to action.”
The organization deplored that Belgium still does not have a national strategy to combat anti-Semitism and promote Jewish life, as it had committed to do to the European Commission, nor does it have a coordinator to carry out this work.
The Jewish community has called for military to be deployed to protect Jewish sites.