Five men charged with setting fire to three London synagogues were arraigned here today in a magistrate’s court, where they were charged with arson. The charges involved the Brondesbury Synagogue, where a March, 1964, fire caused damage totaling 8,000 pounds sterling (about $22, 000); the Bayswater Synagogue where a blaze was put out after it had damaged only a side door; and the Kilburn Synagogue. The last two houses of worship were desecrated by fire last June. The magistrate ordered all men to be held in custody for trial in Old Bailey, London’s central criminal court.
All of the men were charged by police to have been members, or former members, of Colin Jordan’s British National Socialist Party at the time the fires were set. The testimony of police inspectors and detectives charged they had admitted such membership and had said they had been influenced by Jordan’s Nationalist Socialist propaganda. One of the defendants said that Jordan’s wife had suggested that synagogues should be burned but that the name of “the movement” be shielded.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
