Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Jewish Cemetaries abandoned and desecrated in... NEWARK, NJ?!


This is what you'd expect in some European and Middle-Eastern countries, not from New jersey! It's New Jersey for heavens sake!

Complete article on Jpost:

Across Newark there are scattered signs that Jews once flourished here: churches that still bear Stars of David, a YMHA building now a school, shuttered businesses. But the most enduring and heartbreaking reminders that this city's Jews left behind are the cemeteries they built and then, for the most part, abandoned as they left for better lives in the suburbs.

Now the graveyards that chart the rise and subsequent diaspora of what was once one of America's largest Jewish communities are gaining new attention from their descendants, aggrieved at the destruction wrought by decades of neglect.

"I was pretty horrified," recalled Marsha Dubrow when seeing her grandparents' graves six years ago on a visit to the Talmud Torah cemetery with her mother.

Like others who have come looking for the final resting place of immigrant forebears, she was shocked to see hundreds of headstones lying on the ground, victims of both vandalism and the elements.

"I understand that there was vandalism in the 60's and all that," Ms. Dubrow said. "The fact is the community itself had not been caring for it."