Jewish school excessively vandalised by man who ‘does not like Jews’
In the small hours of November 26th, 2006, a man broke into the Lauder Chabad campus in Vienna and smashed a large number of windows and showcases, and devastated bathrooms. The police was called in by neighbours who heard the noise, and arrested the man, who later said that he did not like Jews. An intern who had been present on the premises shortly before the perpetrator broke in suffered a shock. Mr Ariel Muzicant, president of the Jewish Faith Community, said that, after the terror attacks of 1981 and 1985, this was the first time that something this terrible had happened. Mr Leon Zelman of the Jewish Welcome Service stressed that the “Lauder Chabad school is also a symbol of renewed Jewish life in Vienna after the Shoah. Such a deed in the year 2006 is more than disquieting and must be a warning signal for us.” Mr Wolfgang Neugebauer of the Aktion gegen Antisemitismus warned against belittling and de-politicising the incident as the deed of a crazy freak.
In 1981, two Arab perpetrators attacked people in front of the Vienna synagogue with hand grenades and shot dead two people while trying to flee from the police. In 1985, Arab terrorists attacked passengers at the Vienna airport queuing at the El Al counter, killing four people.
Sources:
http://wien.orf.at/stories/153479/ (2011-10-05)
Die Presse (27.11.2006), “Jüdische Schule verwüstet: Antisemitischer Hintergrund?“, p. 10
http://derstandard.at/?id=2674011 (2011-10-05)
