Dozens of Headstones Damaged at Jewish Cemetery in Philadelphia
(CBS NEWS) PHILADELPHIA -- Police say scores of headstones have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in northeast Philadelphia.
A police spokeswoman said preliminary estimates are that 75 to 100 graves were damaged at Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Wissinoming section of the city.
Police said a vandalism report came in just after 9:30 a.m. Sunday.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia lists Mount Carmel as a Jewish cemetery in northeast Philadelphia.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon called the damage reported in Philadelphia “shocking and a source of worry.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf called the vandalism “a cowardly, disturbing act.”
“We must find those responsible and hold accountable,” he tweeted.
“WE ARE SICKENED, SICKENED, SICKENED,” the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which addresses human and civil rights issues across the U.S., tweeted following reports about the vandalism.
The organization called on President Donald Trump to deliver a speech about his intentions to combat forms of hate, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Jewish graves in Philadelphia now vandalized. Stop this incubator of #Antisemitism and other hate. WE BEG YOU @POTUS @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/RHuIjdE2Yg
— AnneFrankCenter(US) (@AnneFrankCenter) February 26, 2017
As CBS Philly reports, the incident comes less than two weeks after another cemetery, the Holy Redeemer Cemetery in the city’s Bridesburg neighborhood, was vandalized. A man walking his dog found more than 30 tombstones knocked over.
Police have not drawn any connection between the two incidents.
The damage also comes less than a week after a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis reported that more than 150 headstones were vandalized, many of them tipped over.