(JTA) — A second mass grave of Jews killed by Romanian troops during World War II was discovered in northeast Romania. The human remains were found near the village of Popricani, the site of a massacre of Jews carried out by Romanian troops allied with the Nazis. In 2010, a mass grave containing 16 bodies…
When Rabbi Ted Falcon dies, plant a fig tree over his remains. Sorry, with his remains: Falcon wants his body to be composted. “I’m just trying to apply the principle of returning dust to dust,” he said. “How do you do that in the most productive way?” In May, Washington became the first state to…
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…
A Jewish cemetery in Massachusetts that was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti last week received a $5,000 donation from a Muslim charity to help repair the damage. That charity, CelebrateMercy, has over the past two years given $115,000 to vandalized Jewish cemeteries and memorials in Missouri, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts and Colorado, and facilitated the donation…
Four pebbles balance on the headstone of Rose Gitlin, signs of a Jewish rite so ancient its origins are unknown. The Talmud says stones root departed souls to the earth. They also last longer than flowers. The superstitious offer them as a protection against demons and golems. Above Rose Gitlin’s name, below the stones, an…
(JTA) — Swastikas and anti-Semitic epithets were drawn on at least 30 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in southern Massachusetts. The vandalism at the Hebrew Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts, occurred over the weekend, police told local media. Among the graffiti written in black marker were “Heil Hitler,” “Hitler was right,” and “Oy vey, this…
A Lithuanian church has removed the Jewish gravestones that had been serving as stairs and returned them to the cemetery where they likely originated from, an organization representing Lithuanian Jewry announced Monday. The Protestant Evangelical Church in Vilnius had been converted by the Soviet regime to a movie theater in 1957 as part of a…
The past year had been a really tough one for me. I experienced a frozen shoulder which lasted over six months, digestive symptoms only a GI doctor could listen to, multiple skin problems and — oh yeah — one of my front teeth suddenly came out unexpectedly while I was out of town. Also, I…
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