A village that changed its name from 'Fort Kill the Jews' vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti, say reports

• A village in Spain daubed with antisemitic graffiti, in which Jews were called "evil."
• Castrillo Matajudíos — 'Fort Kill The Jews' — was a site of religious persecution in the Spanish Inquisition.

A Spanish village that was once called 'Fort Kill the Jews' but recently changed its name has been hit by a wave of antisemitic graffiti.

Landmarks in what is now known as Castrillo Mota de Judíos, Jews' Hill Fort, or Jews' Hill Camp, near Burgos, northern Spain, were vandalized. The graffiti claimed the mayor had "sold out to the killer Jew." Another slogan was "Juden Raus," German for Jews Out.

The settlement was named Fort Kill the Jews in 1627 during the religious persecution of the Jews in the Spanish Inquisition. It had been a thriving medieval town known as the Jews' Hill Fort.

The name was changed back to the original after a referendum was held in 2014 by Mayor Lorenzo Rodríguez.

The graffiti also hailed Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, when hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims were forcibly converted, tortured, and killed in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Mayor Rodríguez condemned the vandalism.

"What happened in Castrillo is a sign of the cowardice of some people and groups that use violence to show their total lack of culture and with the sole purpose of causing harm," he wrote on Twitter.

"These intolerant people are not allowed here," he added.

The mayor has worked on initiatives to celebrate links with the village's Jewish past and a Center of Jewish Memory is due to open in 2022, reported The Times of Israel.

The Times added that The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain called the anti-Semitic vandalism "unacceptable and highlights the danger of the ideologies that led Europe to disaster."

In 2015, Spain offered citizenship to Jews whose families it expelled more than 500 years ago.