Amid the rolling prairie, under the vast Dakota sky, a small fence encloses 20 headstones with surprising Hebrew markings in a field outside the town of Ashley, population 750. Local farmers pass it as they drive for groceries into the town, which has no Jews among its residents. But the graveyard’s most frequent mourners are…
Like many Americans, Tayyib Rashid has been disturbed by the threats of anti-Semitic violence in recent weeks, particularly the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia. But unlike many Americans, Rashid, a Muslim veteran of the U.S. Marines, thought he could help do something about it. “I’m a #MuslimMarine in Chicagoland area,” the…
This city’s share of the national spike in anti-Semitic incidents has been notable: Two JCCs have been evacuated because of bomb threats, and both the Chicago Loop Synagogue and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center have been vandalized and defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, among other events. But after seeing the desecration of two Jewish…
It actually had the opposite effect. The toppled headstones, shattered on the ground, divided the letters of the names commemorated there so that they could not be read. Actually, they brought greater attention to the lives of those buried in the hallowed ground. Images of haphazard destruction, of wanton vandalism, knocking over some and not…
(JTA) — Following the recent wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers and the vandalism of two Jewish cemeteries, some Muslims on Twitter are offering to help guard Jewish sites. The tweeters, including some veterans, said they would volunteer to protect JCCs, cemeteries and synagogues, the Huffington Post first reported. This latest show of…
It was a painful time at the Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery outside St. Louis this weekend, as members of the local Jewish community surveyed the damage after vandals broke or tampered with over 100 headstones. Janet Fishman, whose grandparents’ plot in the cemetery was disturbed, could not contain her upset in speaking to the city’s…
The grave of Sofiya Romm, a doctor who immigrated to the United States from Moscow, is hard to find in Ahavath Achim Anshe Sfard, the local Jewish cemetery here. On a recent afternoon in November, only Romm’s first name was visible. The rest of the inscription was under a pile of brown autumn leaves. You…
We often hear stories about how hard life was for Jews in Russia back in the day. Still, after they passed away, even poor Jews in the Russian Empire got to have gravestones. If you travel around Ukraine and Poland these days, you’ll stumble upon Jewish cemeteries in almost every village where Jews used to…
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