Jewish Agency says US must punish anti-Semitic attackers

Jerusalem: Israel`s Jewish Agency on Wednesday expressed "deep concern" over anti-Semitic threats against American Jewish communities, calling for US authorities to find and punish those responsible.

"I am deeply concerned by the wave of anti-Semitic attacks and threats that has been sweeping across the United States in recent days and weeks," the agency`s chairman Nathan Sharansky said in a statement.

"I trust that US authorities will act resolutely to find those responsible, bring them to justice, and prevent such incidents from recurring," Sharansky wrote.

In his maiden speech to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump spoke out against anti-Semitic incidents and also condemned the seemingly racially-motivated killing of an Indian man in a Kansas bar.

"Recent threats targeting Jewish community centres and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week`s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms," he said.

Sharansky, whose semi-governmental agency is the world`s largest Jewish non-profit organisation, argued there was no distinction between the far-right`s demonisation of Jews and the radical left`s demonisation of the Jewish state of Israel.

"These two ugly phenomena feed on one another and both run counter to the foundations of democratic societies in Europe and America," he said.

In the latest of a spate of bomb threats and attacks against Jewish sites across the United States, more than 500 gravestones were found Sunday to have been vandalised at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.

The Anti-Defamation League has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

The incident came a week after more than 100 headstones were damaged at a Jewish cemetery in St Louis, Missouri. 

It prompted a Muslim-led crowdfunding campaign to raise more than $100,000 to repair the cemetery, and a visit by Vice President Mike Pence.

Vandals spray-painted swastikas on several cars, highway overpasses, buildings and an elementary school playground over the weekend in Buffalo, New York, The Buffalo News reported.