Nineteenth century The
1834 Safed pogrom, involving the mass violence against Jews perpetrated by local Arabs and Druze, featured attacks on local synagogues and the desecration of synagogue ritual objects. Thirteen synagogues, along with an estimated 500 Torah scrolls, were destroyed in the course of the attack.
Twentieth century (1938) In the twentieth century, a major event involving the destruction of synagogues was the
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, occurring on November 9–10, 1938. The event was a
pogrom against Jews carried out in
Nazi Germany by the
Sturmabteilung (SA) and
Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces, with participation from the
Hitler Youth and German civilians. A major feature of this event was the widespread destruction of over a thousand synagogues. Of the 93 synagogues and Jewish prayer houses in Vienna, the
Stadttempel was the only one in the city to survive
World War II, as it could not be destroyed without setting adjoining buildings on fire. All of the others were destroyed by the SA assisted by local authorities. The affected synagogues were
Synagogue des Tournelles (in the Jewish
Marais district),
Synagogue de la rue Copernic (
16th arrondissement of Paris),
Synagogue Nazareth (
3rd arrondissement of Paris),
Synagogue de la rue Pavée (
4th arrondissement of Paris),
Montmartre Synagogue (
18th arrondissement of Paris), and the
Grand Synagogue of Paris (
9th arrondissement of Paris). Following the Second World War, notable attacks on synagogues include the
1949 Menarsha synagogue bombing that took place on August 5, 1949 in the
Jewish quarter of
Damascus,
Syria. The grenade attack claimed the lives of 12 civilians and injured about 30. Most of the victims were children. Other bombings from this period include the
1957-58 USA synagogue bombings. A series of violent attacks that took place between November 11, 1957, and October 14, 1958. In total, there were five bombings and three attempted bombings of synagogues, seven in the
Southern United States and one in the
Midwest United States. There were no deaths or injuries. These events took place during an increase in antisemitic activity in the United States, both nonviolent and violent, after
U.S. Supreme Court established that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional with
Brown v. Board of Education in May 1954. (See also,
1958 Atlanta synagogue bombing). That same decade saw the
1956 Shafrir synagogue shooting in
Kfar Chabad, Israel. The attack which was carried out by
Palestinian terrorists on April 11, 1956. Four people were killed in the blast. According to investigators, the bomb had been set to detonate after prayers concluded and as worshippers were leaving the building. However, the service had started several minutes late and therefore there were few people in the vicinity of the bomb. Two months later, the
1981 Antwerp synagogue bombing occurred on October 20, 1981, when a
truck bomb exploded outside a
Portuguese Jewish synagogue in the centre of
Antwerp,
Belgium, in the
diamond district of Antwerp. The explosion took place shortly after 9:00 AM on a Tuesday morning, a few minutes before
Simchat Torah religious services were to begin. In 1999, the
Sacramento synagogue firebombings, an attack on three California synagogues, occurred on June 18, 1999. The attackers were
white supremacist brothers Benjamin Matthew Williams and James Tyler Williams who were later involved in other hate crimes and subsequently arrested for the
murder of a gay couple.
Twenty-first century 2000s and 2010s Attacks on synagogues continued into the twenty-first century. The
2002 Lyon synagogue attack occurred on 30 March 2002, involving a group of masked men using two cars to conduct a
vehicle-ramming attack in
Lyon, France. After ramming the synagogue, the cars were set on fire. The attack caused severe damage to the synagogue. The Lyon attack was one of a series of pro-Palestinian attacks on French synagogues and other Jewish targets. The series of attacks included attacks on synagogues in
Paris,
Marseille and
Strasbourg. More than 30 others were wounded. The following decade saw the
2014 Jerusalem synagogue attack, a terrorist attack on the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue in
Jerusalem, occurring on 18 November 2014. Two Palestinian men attacked synagogue congregants with axes, knives, and a gun, killing four worshippers, injuring eight others including a
Druze Israeli police officer who later died of his wounds. == Gallery ==