CEMETERY OF FAMOUS POLISH RABBI VANDALIZED

Cemetery of famous Polish rabbi vandalized (JTA)
The grave of one of Poland's most famous Chasidic leaders was desecrated.

Police discovered the desecration Wednesday at the grave of Elimelech Weisblum of Lezajsk, who is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Lezajsk in southern Poland. The grave was covered with swastikas, anti-Semitic slogans and a Star of David in a noose.

Thousands of Chasidic Jews from around the world flock to Elimelech's grave each year on the anniversary of his death.

ARRESTS IN CHICAGO CEMETERY DESECRATION

Two arrested in Chicago for hate crimes (JTA)
A man described as a neo-Nazi by police was charged with vandalizing a Chicago-area Jewish cemetery.

Mariusz Wdziekonski, 21, was arraigned Saturday on charges ranging from criminal damage to property to a felony hate crime, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Last month Wdziekonski, a Polish immigrant who has lived in the United States for four years, is alleged to have painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs on 57 headstones in the Westlawn Cemetery. Police say Wdziekonski has acknowledged being a member of the neo-Nazi organization known as NSM 88.

The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the arrest and lauded the Cook County Sheriff's Department.

"The Sheriff's Department deserves high praise for its handling of this deplorable anti-Semitic incident, which is a hate crime against the entire community," said Lonnie Nasatir, the ADL's Chicago regional director. "The Sheriff's Office took the graffiti seriously from the moment it was discovered, and we are grateful to Sheriff Tom Dart for his leadership in investigating this incident effectively and professionally."

Also on Saturday in Chicago, a 52-year-old man was charged with a hate crime after using an anti-Semitic slur while threatening a man with an ice pick, the Sun-Times reported. Louis Ranger's criminal record includes a 1994 conviction on a hate crime.

CHICAGO CEMETERY DESECRATED

Anti-Semitic vandalism at Chicago cemetery (JTA)
Nearly 60 headstones at a Chicago Jewish cemetery were spray-painted with anti-Semitic graffiti.

Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans such as "juden ras" (German for "Jews out"), "Aryan Power" and a Star of David hanging from a gallows were found on headstones at the Westlawn Cemetery in northwest Chicago. About 46,000 people are buried there.

The vandalism likely occurred on Jan. 6, according to Sheriff Tom Dart, who called the damage a hate crime.

"What they did here is especially despicable," Dart said at a news conference last Friday afternoon, the Chicago Tribune reported. "The desecration of graves has a level in the circle of hell that goes to the very bottom."

Police believe several vandals are responsible. “We decry this senseless and disturbing act of anti-Semitism, which affects the entire Jewish community,” said Lonnie Nasatir, Anti-Defamation League's Chicago Regional director. “We applaud the Cook County Sheriff's Office for taking this incident seriously."

VANDALS STRIKE NEW JERSEY CEMETARY

Vandals strike N.J. cemetery (JTA)
Hundreds of gravestones were toppled at a Jewish cemetery in New Jersey.

The initial damage of about 19 overturned gravestones at the Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick was found on Jan. 3. More extensive damage was discovered three days later after hundreds of gravestones were knocked over, some broken from hitting each other, according to the Home News Tribune.

"It looks like it was hit by a bomb," Nathan Reiss told the newspaper. Reiss is a board member of Congregation Etz Ahaim in Highland Park, which shares the cemetery with Poile Zedek.

New Brunswick Police Sgt. Richard Rowe told The Star-Ledger that there was no evidence to suggest that the crime was a bias incident.

REBBE NACHMAN'S GRAVE IN DANGER OF TAKEOVER

Rebbe Nachman's Grave in Immediate Danger of Takeover
(IsraelNN.com) As of this past Thursday, the most "Jewish" site in eastern Europe - the gravesite of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov - is in danger of being auctioned off to foreign ownership. This, following the rejection by the Ukrainian Supreme Court of an appeal by a Breslov Hassidic group, and the instatement of a ruling obligating the latter to pay $3 million - or risk losing the holy site.

JEWISH GRAVES DESECRATED IN NEW ZEALAND

Jewish graves desecrated in New Zealand (JTA)
Jewish graves in New Zealand's capital city were desecrated. The six graves in Wellington's Karori Cemetery were found defaced on Oct. 7 with anti-Semitic phrases, according to a report from the New Zealand Jewish Chronicle reprinted in The Jerusalem Post.

The attack is believed to have been set off by a front-page article in Wellington's Dominion Post two days earlier in which the new Israeli ambassador to New Zealand, Yuval Rotem, indicated his desire to hire a native New Zealander to work in his Australian office.

Rotem was taken to task for this comment, which seems to violate New Zealand's anti-discrimination law. The graffiti targeted Rotem and the article's author, Hank Schouten, and also included more typical anti-Semitic slurs.

Local Jewish leaders did not make the vandalism public initially for fear of copycat attacks. The graffiti has since been removed.

Three years ago, more than 100 Jewish graves at two other cemeteries in Wellington were desecrated and a prayer house was burnt to the ground following the arrest of two Israeli agents for passport fraud.

HEBRON CEMETARY DESECRATED

Hevron Cemetery Desecrated Over Sabbath (INN)
Hevron’s ancient Jewish cemetery was vandalized over the Sabbath.

JEWISH CEMETARY DESECRATED IN POLAND

Poland: Jewish cemetery desecrated (JPost)
Vandals spray painted swastikas and other Nazi symbols on about 100 gravestones at a large Jewish cemetery in Poland, police said Monday. Visitors to the cemetery in the southern city of Czestochowa discovered the damage on Sunday and police have not yet found the culprits, said Silesia regional police spokesman Andrzej Gaska.

"This is one of the biggest acts of destruction in years," said Jan Gebert, spokesman for the Jewish community in Warsaw. "In fact, I can't think of any other cases in Europe that have been this big." The vandals used black spray paint to tag the gravestones with the letters SS, swastikas, and the slogan "Jews Out" written in German.

Gaska said police had not observed activity by anti-Semitic groups in the region for some time, and that the incident appeared to be of a "hooligan nature." Czestochowa's Jewish cemetery has about 4,500 graves and is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Poland.

This country was home to about 3.5 million Jews - Europe's largest Jewish community - until the Holocaust, when most were killed by Nazi Germany. Today there are an estimated 30,000 Jews in Poland.

CZECH JEWISH CEMETARY DESECRATED

Cemetery desecrated in Czech town (JTA)
Vandals knocked over 23 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in the Czech Republic. Five of the tombstones were broken, the police reported last Friday. The 19th-century cemetery in Pisek, a town 62 miles south of Prague, was renovated and opened to the public in 1993. Pisek today has no Jewish community.

RABBIS PROTEST CONSTRUCTION ON LITHUANIAN JEWISH CEMETERY

Rabbis protest construction on Jewish cemetery (JTA)
European rabbis held a protest and prayer vigil today in Brussels over a 600-year-old cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania that they say is being used for construction.

Construction of a residential and commercial complex recently began in an area of the former Snipiskes Cemetery the city sold to developers. The city government has claimed there are no graves under the area in question according to its research, but experts from the London-based Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJCE) have repeatedly said that bodies were located under the ground in question.

CPJCE estimates that some 10,000 Jews have been buried in what was one of the region's largest Jewish cemeteries.

In May, a task force including Jewish leaders and government officials met and reportedly agreed that construction would be halted until further surveying was done, but the CPJCE and the Brussels-based Council of European Rabbis (CER) say that instead, bulldozing and digging in the area has begun.

Some 100 Chasidic and Orthodox Jews held a prayer meeting and protest today outside of the European Commission about the purported desecration of the cemetery while a rabbinic delegation delivered a formal complaint at the office of the Lithuanian Permanent Representative to the European Union.

Among the delegation were Brussels chief rabbi Albert Guiguii, CER member Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag of Manchester, England, and CPJCE executive director Rabbi Abraham Ginsberg.

CZECH JEWISH CEMETARY DESECRATED

Czech Jewish cemetery desecrated (JTA)
A Jewish cemetery was desecrated in a Czech town. Twenty-five tombstones were toppled over the weekend in Bohumin, about 220 miles east of Prague, Jirina Garajova told The Associated Press. Garajova heads a Jewish community in the northeastern part of the Czech Republic. The 19th century cemetery is no longer used for burials. About 400 Jews lived in Bohumin before World War II, but only 11 are known to have survived the Holocaust.

JEWISH CEMETERY DESECRATED IN BELARUS

Jewish tombstones knocked down in Belarus (JTA)
Four gravestones in a Jewish cemetery were knocked down by vandals in Mogilyov, Belarus.

Relatives of those buried in the graves appealed to the police, one of whom theorized that the heavy tombstones may have been knocked down by a wind storm, the AEN news agency reported Thursday. Naum Ioffe, a local Jewish leader, told AEN that there have been no strong storms in Mogilyov in recent days, calling the policeman's theory "fantastic." In addition, the cemetery has been vandalized before.

BUCHAREST JEWISH CEMETERY DESECRATED

Jewish cemetery in Bucharest desecrated (YNet)
Unknown perpetrators defiled dozens of graves and headstones at the great Jewish cemetery (Cimitirul Mozaic) in the Romania capital Bucharest.

Dalya Mark, a Jewish resident of the capital, discovered the devastation on Sunday, upon her arrival at the place.

"When I arrived at the cemetery's area I saw two policemen, the cemetery's director, and the workers who discovered the damage. I saw iron bars scattered in several places. These were probably used to desecrate the graves," she described.

Mark said that some of the headstones were pulled down and some of the graves dug out. "There was a terrible stench of decay in the air," she said. However, according to Mark, no anti-Semitic marks were found at the graveyard.

CHASSIDIC REBBE'S GRAVE RANSACKED

Lublin grave ransacked (JTA)
The grave of a 19th century Chasidic rabbi in Poland was ransacked. Police said thieves stole the aluminum part of the tomb belonging to Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak Horowitz, known as the Seer of Lublin. The police are searching for the structure, which is used by Chasidic pilgrims from around the world to place notes at the grave of Horowitz, who died in 1815.

TOMBSTONES TOPPLED IN UKRAINE

Tombstones toppled in Ukraine (JTA)
About 70 tombstones of Holocaust victims were toppled, and some destroyed, in a historic cemetery in western Ukraine. The incident in the city of Chernovtsy took place April 12, but was reported only Thursday. Local law enforcement agencies are investigating. The damaged tombstones were among some in the Chernovtsy Jewish cemetery that had been restored recently by local businessmen.

IT'S PESACH AND THAT MEANS A SURGE IN ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS

Every year at Pesach, Synagogues are defaced and Jewish cemetaries are desecrated. Here's this week's summary:

A Chicago synagogue that was defaced with Arabic writing DEATH TO ISRAEL!" and someone in San Francisco spray painted a swastika on the wall of Temple Emanu-el.

In New York, a swastika was spray painted on a bulletin board outside a Valley Stream synagogue and Jewish outreach center. A swastika was painted on a Yonkers synagogue too.

In Oklahoma, a bomb at a synagogue was defused.

In Montreal, someone detonated a bomb at the Jewish Community Center.

In St. Petersburg, tombstones in a Jewish cemetary were vandalized.

In France, 50 Jewish tombs were damaged.

JEWISH CEMETERY DESECRATED IN GERMANY

Germany: Vandals hit Jewish cemetery (JPost)
Vandals attacked a Jewish cemetery in southern Germany, damaging some 60 grave markers, roughly half of them beyond repair, regional police said Saturday, noting that no politically motivated markings were found.

Police from the southern state of Bavaria said the attack appeared to have taken place at the end of January, but was not immediately noticed. The vandals appeared to have scaled the walls to knock over and break grave stones dating back to the 1800s, they said.

No sprayings or markings of any kind were left behind, leaving authorities to question the motive behind the attack.

The cemetery, located in the village of in Bad Windsheim, which also includes a memorial, was cared for by a group of volunteers and has not been used for burials since the 1930s, police said.

Local and state officials in Bavaria are offering rewards for anyone able to offer information about the incident.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, GRAVES DEFACED IN UKRAINE

Holocaust Monument, Hundreds of Jewish Graves Defaced in Ukraine (FoxNews)
KIEV, Ukraine — A monument to Holocaust victims and 240 Jewish graves have been defaced with swastikas in southern Ukraine, an activist with a local Jewish community said Tuesday.

Unidentified vandals desecrated the Holocaust Monument late Sunday with red swastikas and with the inscription "Congratulations on the Holocaust" and painted swastikas on 270 graves in a Jewish cemetery in the Black Sea port of Odessa, said Boleslav Kapulkin, a spokesman for Odessa's Jewish community.

"It is awful. They insulted all Ukrainians and hurt Ukraine's image," Kapulkin told The Associated Press.

The monument was erected at the site where thousands of Jews were killed and burned by the Nazis between 1941-1944. Kapulkin said police launched a probe into the vandalism.

Ukraine is home to about 100,000 Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Jews perished over the centuries in pogroms staged by Ukrainian nationalists, and millions died during the Holocaust.

ODESSA WORKERS DESECRATE JEWISH CEMETARY

Odessa workers desecrate Jewish cemetery (JTA)
A Jewish cemetery in of Odessa, shut down by the Soviets in the 1970s, was desecrated by city workers. Jewish.ru reported Monday that a local Ukrainian television crew, following up on a report of homeless people living in the cemetery, discovered that city workers had been using heavy equipment to dig massive holes in the burial ground.

The corpses they dug up were mixed with garbage commonly dumped on the grounds.
Roman Shvartzman, chairman of an Odessa association of Holocaust survivors, said the construction crews had made a mockery of those buried there.

After the cemetery was closed down, the city reportedly used some of the gravestones for construction, and Jewish community representatives claim some local citizens continue to do so even today.