Pictured Above: The Taam kosher restaurant in Manchester. Credit: Facebook.

(JNS.org) Following two arson attacks on kosher restaurants in Manchester, U.K., police have labeled the incidents as “anti-Semitic hate crimes.” 

The arson attacks at the JS and Taam kosher restaurants in north Manchester “are linked,” the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said.

Security camera footage shows two suspects throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Taam restaurant last Friday before midnight, and then throwing a rock through the restaurant’s front window.

Early Tuesday morning, arsonists forcibly opened a window at the JS restaurant and poured a flammable liquid inside the venue, setting it alight. Firefighters arrived at the restaurant and fought fire for more than an hour before extinguishing it. 

No injuries were reported at the restaurants.

“This is clearly very worrying for businesses and people living in the area, and I want to offer you my assurances that we have increased patrols in the area and have a team investigating these linked crimes,” said GMP Bury Borough Detective Chief Inspector Charlotte Cadden.

“No words can describe the anger of the management and staff,” wrote Michael Issler, owner of JS, in a Facebook post. Issler also thanked firefighters, police and the Jewish community for their support.

Fourteen headstones in a Manchester Jewish cemetery were vandalized in an apparent anti-Semitic act in May 2016.

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