Last update - 00:00 25/05/2007
Electrical fault, not arson, likely caused Geneva synagogue fire
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press
A fire that erupted in Geneva's largest synagogue on Thursday appears to have been caused by an electrical fault, Swiss police said Thursday, backtracking from an earlier assertion that arson was the most likely cause.
Nobody was injured in the fire, although it caused heavy damage to the facade of the building that also houses the Jewish community's offices.
Police said, however, that the Hekhal Haness Synagogue was only lightly damaged and that all the Torah scrolls and religious objects had been salvaged by the dozens of rescue workers and fire fighters.
Wary of describing the fire as an anti-Semitic act, police nonetheless said at a news briefing Thursday morning that arson seemed to have caused the blaze. But later they retracted this assumption and said electric malfunction had probably caused the blaze.
"A big circuit-breaker box was found in the area where the fire originated," police said.
Johanne Gurfinkiel, secretary-general of the Geneva-based Intercommunity Coordination against Anti-Semitism and Defamation (CICAD), told Haaretz that the Jewish community in Geneva is tense and worried, as well as shocked and saddened by the incident.
The Hekhal Haness Synagogue is one of six synagogues in Geneva, and serves the Sephardi community members who hail from North Africa. It was erected in 1972 and financed by businessmen Nissim Gaon and Leon Tamam.