ARSON ATTACK ON SYNAGOGUE IN WUPPERTAL

WUPPERTAL, SEPTEMBER 17 /SRNA/ - A fire was deliberately set at the entrance to a synagogue in the German city of Wuppertal, police said.

"An incendiary device was thrown at the synagogue door," a police spokesman said, adding that members of the Jewish community extinguished the fire.

No one was injured in the fire, but the synagogue, which opened in 2002, was damaged, DPA reported.

Shortly after the fire broke out, police detained a man near the scene.

The criminal police are leading the investigation, with the State Security Department also involved.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany said the fire was not accidental, but rather an attack carried out ahead of the major Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

"The perpetrator has not the slightest awareness that he is doing something wrong, nor any sense of shame. This approach is evidence of the growing normalization of hatred against Jews, to which our society has so far failed to find an answer," said Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

The synagogue in Wuppertal was already targeted in an attack in 2014. Three Palestinians were convicted after admitting that they had thrown incendiary devices at the synagogue.