Not even the dead are sacrosanct. According to a dispatch from the wire service Agence France Presse via Yahoo News, several hundred tombs were defaced at a Jewish cemetery in the northeast part of the country on Sunday. France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, called the act “despicable,” adding:
The country will not tolerate this new injury which goes against the values that all French people share.
Every effort will be made to identify, question and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for this despicable act.
A source close to the investigation noted that approximately 300 graves were desecrated in the cemetery, which is located in the Alsatian town Sarre-Union. Said Philippe Richert, president of the Alsace region:
It’s an image of desolation. One doesn’t knock over heavy steles [wooden slabs often used for commemorative purposes] like that dating from the 19th century very easily. It was a deliberate act of destruction.
The act is the latest in a growing wave of anti-Semitic acts in Europe, following Saturday’s Islamic terrorist attack on a synagogue in Copenhagen, which left one Jew dead, but this form of religious bigotry is also rearing its ugly head here at home. There have also been growing calls for Jews to leave Europe “for their own good.”
