After the community centre in Ljubljana was daubed with a Nazi swastika, the government condemned what it called an ‘unacceptable hate message’. Unknown persons vandalized the door of the Jewish Cultural Centre in Ljubljana on Thursday in the first known incident of ant-Semitism in Slovenia since the latest Israel-Hamas fighting started –drawing the Star of David and the Nazi swastika with an equal sign between them. The incident occurred at around 5 am on Thursday. Robert Baruh Waltl, president of the Liberal Jewish Community of Slovenia and director of the Jewish Cultural Centre, identified it as the first anti-Semitic incident in the country since the latest conflict in Israel-Palestine started. “Police are reviewing the surveillance camera footage,” he told the daily Delo. “You know what’s behind that door? The Museum of the Holocaust in Slovenia, the Jewish Museum, the synagogue, and an exhibition about Anne Frank’s family,” he added. (…) “Hateful symbols are not a free expression of opinions and do not strengthen democracy; in fact, hateful speech is extremely damaging to human dignity. It is our obligation always to resolutely condemn hate speech and constantly fight against it,” said Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon. On social networks, many also condemned Thursday night’s event. The March 8 Institute wrote Facebook that “equating of religious communities with the rule of a criminal regime is inadmissible and questionable”.
via balkan insight: Jewish Centre in Slovenia Defaced with Anti-Semitic Graffiti