Rosh Hashanah attack

First violent attack against Jewish community after 1989

On 22 September 1991, during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, an antisemitic attack took place in Warsaw. Neo-Nazis attacked worshippers leaving the Nożyk Synagogue, the only pre-war synagogue still functioning in the city. Jews were bullied as they exited the building after prayer, making the attack a direct act of violence against Jews during a sacred religious holiday. The perpetrators were neo-Nazis, a movement that began to emerge in Poland at the turn of the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the fall of communism. This incident was one of the first open antisemitic attacks in democratic Poland and served as a stark reminder that antisemitism was not a relic of the past, but a continuing and dangerous presence in contemporary society.