Mausoleum Doors Taken In $30,000 Looting Of Jewish Cemetery In Queens
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Ari Feldman April 22, 2019
More than $30,000 worth of mausoleum doors and air vents were stolen from a historic Jewish cemetery this past weekend, the New York Post reported.
Sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday, authorities said, a thief took 14 doors and 75 air vents from Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery, in the neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens. The cemetery has been in use since 1851, according to the website of one of its maintaining synagogues, Congregation Shearith Israel, the United States’ oldest congregation. (It is not to be confused with the Beth Olam Cemetery in Hollywood, California, where Judy Garland is buried.)
Jewish cemeteries across the country have seen increased vandalism in recent years, driving a spike in nonviolent anti-Semitic incidents nationwide.
Beth Olam is one of several sprawling Jewish cemeteries in Queens’ “cemetery belt,” where some historic graveyards have become unkempt and, in some cases, abandoned by the congregations that are nominally responsible for them.
According to Shearith Israel’s site, American Jewish luminaries such as Emma Lazarus and Benjamin Cardozo are buried in Beth Olam.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
