The entrance to the Spanish village of Catrillo Mota de Judíos vandalized with antisemitic graffiti. Photo: Twitter

A small village in Spain that features the word “Jews” in its name has been targeted by antisemitic vandals for the second time in less than a year.

Neo-nazi symbols were daubed and garbage containers set alight on Wednesday night in the village of Castrillo Mota de Judíos — which translates as “Jews Hill Camp” — in the northern province of Burgos. The village became a subject of international interest in 2014, when its 52 residents voted in a referendum to change its name from from Matajudíos, which means “Kill Jews,” to the more benign “Mota de Judíos,” which is reputed to have been the town’s original name when it was founded by a group of Sephardic Jews in the 11th century.

One of the offending slogans daubed in the village read, “Camp Kill Jews, twinned with Auswitch [sic].”

The village has faced repeated attacks as a result of the referendum, along with its plans to open a Jewish memorial center. On Thursday, its mayor, Lorenzo Rodriguez, again sounded a defiant note when he called the vandals “cowards” and affirmed that the village would not be swayed from its goal of commemorating its historic Jewish presence.

“The perpetrators will not succeed in getting us to abandon our objective, which is restoring Castrillo’s Jewish memory,” Rodriguez said. “Truth and courage always beat hatred and cowardice. We will never kneel.”

Spain’s Jewish community also protested the vandalism. “We once again want to express our deepest disgust and dismay in the wake of this new incident in Castrillo Mota de Judíos,” Maxo Benalal — secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) — said in a statement.

“We call on the police to do their job as quickly and effectively as possible, and for the courts to apply the penal code as strictly as possible. Spain is not a racist country and we can’t allow incidents like this to go unpunished,” Benalal said.

Last December, antisemitic graffiti scrawled in the village targeted Rodriguez personally, calling him “the mayor who sold out to the Jewish murderers.” Other offending slogans included “Juden Raus” (German for “Jews Out”), “Long Live the Catholic Monarchs” and references to Tomas de Torquemada, the fanatical 15th century Dominican friar who served as the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition that resulted in the mass expulsion of Jews from the Iberian peninsula.