Jewish cemetery in southwest France vandalized
The Bayonne City Hall. Image by wikipedia
(JTA) — About a dozen graves were vandalized in a Jewish cemetery in southwest France.
The vandalism took place over the weekend in the Jewish cemetery of Bayonne, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques area.
The damage was discovered on Sunday by Déborah Loupien-Suares, the president of the Jewish community of Bayonne and Biarritz, who was visiting the graves of her grandparents.
She tweeted that she was “angry and indignant” after seeing the desecration of the cemetery and called for those responsible to be punished.
She told local media that “significant damage” was inflicted on the gravestones and that several were smashed and broken. A commemorative plaque for a girl who was deported during World War II also was smashed, according to the French daily LeParisien.
Loupien-Suares said there were no anti-Semitic phrases or inscriptions at the cemetery, and called for an investigation “to be carried out calmly.”
She told LeParisien she would file a complaint with local police on Tuesday.
The post Jewish cemetery in southwest France vandalized appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
