A 37-year-old Afghan national was arrested on suspicion of setting fire to the entrance of the Bergische Synagogue in Wuppertal, western Germany, on Thursday.
No one was injured, and the site sustained minor damage. Police have launched an investigation into the incident.
According to Wuppertal police, at around 2 p.m., the suspect poured a flammable liquid over the synagogue’s entrance steps in the Barmen district and set them on fire. Members of the community quickly extinguished the blaze, and police arrested the suspect nearby.
Police said the man is known to them and that, according to initial findings, he acted alone. At this stage, police have not disclosed the motive for the attack.
The synagogue is guarded by police almost around the clock, and it is possible that the close security presence enabled officers to identify and arrest the suspect so quickly.
Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, described the incident as an “arson attack” and warned of what he called the “progressive normalization of hatred of Jews.” He stressed that the incident occurred ahead of Yom Kippur, which will take place in three days, and called on security authorities to ensure the safety of worshippers at synagogues.
Not the first time Wuppertal synagogue attacked
This is not the first time the Wuppertal synagogue has been attacked. In 2014, Molotov cocktails were thrown at it.
The incident comes against a backdrop of a high level of antisemitic offenses in Germany, as well as a further increase in their number.
According to official Federal Police figures, 6,548 antisemitic offenses were recorded in 2025, a 5% increase compared with 2024. Nearly half of them (47.2%) were classified as “related to the conflict in the Middle East.”
A year earlier, in 2024, 6,236 antisemitic offenses were recorded, a jump of about 21% compared with 5,164 in 2023.