JEWISH GRAVES DESECRATED IN MILAN, ITALY

Grave desecration shakes Milan's Jewish community (JPost)
Forty Jewish gravestones were damaged, five of them completely destroyed, in the Jewish section of the Via Jona cemetery in Milan late Monday night. The graves had been overturned, though no graffiti or anti-Jewish slogans were found at the site.

Members of the Jewish community and investigators are split as to whether this was an anti-Semitic act, or one of pure vandalism. The gravestones had been overturned in area 8, the zone nearest to the road, raising the issue of whether the vandals had just struck the area closest to where they had entered the cemetery grounds.

The local media, however, claim it was an act of anti-Semitism, amid the growing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment voiced in Italy since the installation of recently elected prime minister Romano Prodi.