French police reportedly have arrested two teenagers on suspicion that they burned prayer books at a Jewish cemetery near Lyon in eastern France.

The two are suspected of setting fire to the office of the cemetery at Champagne-au-Mont-d’Or on Sunday night, according to Le Progrés, a local newspaper. They are said to have set a tablecloth on fire and then used it to burn dozens of prayer books stored at the office.

Police told the newspaper the motive for the arson was presumed to be “pure vandalism” and not anti-Semitism.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

In a separate incident, the mayor of Caluire et Cuire, a suburb of Lyon, reportedly has filed a complaint with police over a large anti-Semitic graffiti that unidentified individuals spray-painted along eight meters of a wall near a main road.

It read: “Longs live Bin Laden, all the Jews to the ovens” and included swastikas, according to SPCJ, the security unit of France’s Jewish communities. SPCJ posted a picture of the graffiti online. Referencing French President Francois Hollande, the graffiti also read: “Hollande the dirty Jew, you mother.”

The French news agency AFP reported that in a third incident in Paris, unknown parties spray-painted the words “Hessel is an anti-Semite” on the home of the 95-year-old pro-Palestinian activist and Socialist activist Stephane Hessel.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German daily, last year quoted Hessel – a Jewish Holocaust survivor and author of a popular booklet “Indignez-vous!” – as saying that the Nazi occupation of France was “relatively harmless” compared to the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

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

$90 $180

$360

Other amount