The disturbing series of antisemitic acts continues, as police in Queens report that someone made off with $30,000 worth of doors and air vents from mausoleums at a famous Jewish cemetery.
The stolen doors to seven mausoleums – as well as 75 air vents – were discovered missing on Sunday from the Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery, which is located on the border between Queens and Brooklyn, reported the New York Post.
The theft reportedly took place between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning, a police spokesman reported.
In February, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at a local rally against antisemitism and pointed out that “This is not a small thing. People right here in this community in Brooklyn have seen in their own lives what happens when anti-Semitism goes unchecked, when people stay silent, when the authorities don’t do anything, in countries that families here came from, they watched complacency, silence. They watched opportunism that led to horrifying results. This is why if anyone tries to dismiss anti-Semitism, if anyone tries to suggest that it’s not such a big problem, they need to look at history, not just a little bit of history, two millennia of history, of bias and discrimination against the Jewish people in countries all over the world – and unfortunately we’re still grappling with it here. They’re still grappling with it and Europe. It never went away and we have to be blunt about it. It never went away and we’re dealing with it to this day and it’s very dangerous.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, who formerly directed the Obama administration’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, recently told the Los Angeles Times that Jews today are “living in a charged political environment. Things are polarized in ways we haven’t seen in recent memory. People are on edge in part because they are following their leaders. When leaders at the highest levels use incredibly intemperate language and repeat the rhetoric of extremists, we shouldn’t be surprised when young people — let alone others — imitate what they see. Extremists feel emboldened by this. We know because we’re tracking extremists. We’re reading what they write on social media and what they’re saying in chat rooms.”
Nor are such antisemitic acts limited to America. “The week began with Alain Finkielkraut taking his mother-in-law to Sunday lunch in Paris. As he returned to his apartment on the Left Bank, he crossed through a crowd of “yellow vest” protesters. They recognized the well-televised philosopher,” Atlantic reported. “Despite the fact that he has professed sympathy for their grievances in his punditry, his presence enraged them. A viral video captured young men bedecked in the canary-colored uniform of the movement spewing insults at the slovenly 69-year-old: “Dirty Jew!” “Tel Aviv! Back to Tel Aviv!” “France is ours!”
