Women enter a Jewish restaurant in central Athens, March 28, 2023. Greek police sources said they arrested two men who targeted the building. (Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images)

Greek authorities arrested and charged seven people Thursday for two separate attacks earlier this year on a synagogue and an Israeli-owned hotel in Athens.

The incidents represented one of the latest instances of violent antisemitism in Europe since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7. In France, a 12-year-old girl was recently the victim of an alleged antisemitic rape, and this spring, a German synagogue was targeted with a molotov cocktail. 

Other recent reported targets of attack on the continent have included the Israeli embassies in Belgium and Sweden. Last weekend, an attacker who wounded a Serbian police officer guarding the Israeli embassy in Belgrade was shot dead. 

Four of the suspects in Greece — a Greek citizen, two Iranians and an Afghan accomplice — were charged in connection with a May incident in which a homemade bomb targeted an Israeli-owned hotel and restaurant, Reuters reported. Another three — one Greek, one Afghan and one Iranian — were also arrested in connection with a June incident in which police said two of them threw flammable material at the entrance to an Athens synagogue.

The hotel attackers were accused of plotting a racially motivated attack on a foreign-owned property, and also charged with arson that put human lives at risk. The synagogue suspects were likewise charged with arson, as well as robbery and a number of other crimes, authorities said.

Greece saw an incident of high-profile antisemitic terror one year ago, when authorities foiled a planned attack on a Chabad-Lubavitch center in Athens.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief

You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.

And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.

That’s where you come in. Gifts of any size keep the Forward free and accessible to everyone and ensure we have the resources we need to power the Forward at this critical time for American Jews.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Will you support our work today?

— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$120 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT