A mentally disturbed man poured gasoline at the entrance to the building. The police were able to arrest the suspected perpetrator.
The crime scene: the synagogue in Zurich Wiedikon.
Adrian Baer
On Saturday evening, there was an attempted arson at the synagogue in Zurich Wiedikon. This was announced by FDP councilor Jehuda Spielman, a member of the Jewish community, via the social network X. The synagogue’s security service prevented the attack from being carried out.
The Zurich city police confirmed the incident. The suspected perpetrator is a mentally disturbed 32-year-old Swiss man. He poured gasoline in front of the entrance to the synagogue shortly after 8 p.m. When the security service intervened, he fled, but was arrested later that night by the cantonal police.
Initial investigations have shown that the man acted alone. An extremist motive is not the main reason. The suspected perpetrator was already known to the police and has several previous convictions for property crimes.
Perpetrator deliberately chose his target
Spielman points out, however, that the synagogue was hardly a random target. The man had already been noticed in the vicinity of another Jewish institution a few days earlier. In addition, he had harassed a Jewish person in the neighborhood shortly before the crime.
First he tried to get into the synagogue. After he was turned away, he went to the gas station around the corner to get some gas. This can be seen in images from surveillance cameras.
War in the Middle East aggravates the situation
On March 2, there was a knife attack on an Orthodox Jew in Zurich, which left him with life-threatening injuries. The perpetrator was a 15-year-old who professed affiliation with the Islamic State.
Spielman is concerned about the dynamics behind it. Since the Hamas massacre on October 7, there has been an overheated atmosphere that could lead unstable or extremist people to take action. This is also the responsibility of those people who would never resort to violence themselves, but who repeatedly cross boundaries on social networks.
“You can discuss Israel, you can discuss Judaism, but the boundaries of decency must be respected again,” Spielman appeals. The police reacted well and quickly in the current case, the Jewish community affected feels that they are being taken seriously and is grateful for that.
Philip Bessermann, managing director of the Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism, warns against underestimating the incident just because the crime was not motivated by Islamism. “It is too easy to simply dismiss the perpetrator as being of unsound mind,” he says, even if the exact background is not yet known.
Physical violence is increasing
Nationwide, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the real world – i.e. excluding those on the Internet – has risen sharply since October 7. This is shown by the anti-Semitism report published annually by the Federation of Israeli Communities and the Foundation against Racism and Anti-Semitism.
The increase in physical violence is particularly worrying. Physical violence was previously rare, but in 2023 ten incidents were reported in German-speaking Switzerland alone. At the Zurich Airport train station, for example, a strictly religious brother and sister were suddenly punched by an unknown assailant.
There were no attacks on Jewish institutions or damage to property until Saturday. This is probably because the Jewish communities have their synagogues and schools guarded.
Such security measures date back to the Palestinian terror of the 1970s, when, among other things, a Swissair plane crashed near Würenlingen because of a bomb. The synagogue in Wiedikon has also had its own security service for a long time.
The measures were tightened after an assassination attempt took place in their vicinity in 2001. The Israeli Rabbi Abraham Grünbaum, visiting Switzerland, was shot by an unknown assailant on his way to the synagogue. The crime was never solved. Following the knife attack on March 2, Jewish institutions in Zurich have further increased security – the perpetrator had previously also looked around a synagogue.
For a long time, Jewish communities had to finance such measures themselves, which meant they were stretched to their limits. At the end of last year, the Federal Parliament doubled the funds for their financial support to five million francs.
