Over the weekend, dozens of Jewish graves in Barcelona's Les Corts cemetery were smashed and torn out of the ground, and there was extensive damage to the site.
Barcelona’s Mayor, Jaume Collboni, said in a statement that “hate has no place in a pluralistic and respectful Barcelona,” adding that “all our support is with the city’s Jewish community."
Sirera: Not just vandalism, but antisemitism
Spanish politician Daniel Sirera also responded to the incident, stating in a post to X/Twitter, “It is not mere vandalism: it is antisemitism.”
Sirera served as the chairman of the People’s Party in Catalonia (PPC) from 2007 to 2008 and is now the president of the Municipal Group of the Popular Party at the Barcelona City Council.
In his statement, Sirera said “Barcelona cannot look the other way,” and called for increased surveillance at the cemetery and for zero tolerance for antisemitic attacks.
He called the incident at the cemetery “extremely serious,” and said that “neither silence nor equidistance” was acceptable, adding that “when one community is attacked, all of Barcelona is attacked.”
Antisemitism in Spain
This is not the first antisemitic incident in Barcelona in recent weeks. At the end of December of last year, two Israeli mural artists flew to Barcelona with the intention of turning antisemitic murals into pro-Israel messages.
During their work in the city, a mob gathered and attacked them, initially insulting them, before escalating to physical violence.
"We went to get into the car, and they threw a glass bottle at his head," Dudi Shoval, one of the artists, said at the time of the incident. "There were a few punches and some kicks. They wanted to get to the women who were with us to hurt them."
According to Spain’s Observatory of Antisemitism, antisemitic incidents rose by 321% in 2024 compared to 2023, and by 567% compared to 2022.
The Spanish Interior Ministry simultaneously reported that 2025 saw the highest number of jihadist-related arrests in the country’s history, a phenomenon that Spain’s Jewish leaders viewed with increasing alarm.