Recently ‘World Israel News’ re-published an article by one Abe Mermelstien – that had originally been published at ‘Jewish Breaking News’ – which claims that has been a recent ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ against a jewish cemetery in the small Romanian city of Reghin.
To wit:
‘Another act of antisemitism has taken place after a historic Jewish cemetery in Romania was vandalized, with at least 14 gravestones deliberately knocked over.
The incident took place in the city of Reghin, located in the Transylvania region, where unknown violators entered the cemetery overnight and desecrated multiple gravestones.
Authorities confirmed that while the gravestones were not smashed, they were intentionally overturned.
Among those buried at the site is Rabbi Hillel Pollak, a student of the esteemed rabbi Chasam Sofer, adding an additional layer of historical and spiritual significance to this antisemitic attack.
The attack drew a response from MK Benny Gantz, whose own great-grandfather is buried in the cemetery.
“Romanian Ambassador to Israel Radu Ioanid called me this evening, on Holocaust Memorial Day of all days, about the disturbing desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Northern Romania, where none other than my great grandfather is buried,” Gantz said.
He continued: “The desecration of a Jewish cemetery is a stark reminder that even when it comes to Holocaust Memorial Day, antisemitism knows no bounds nor has faded with time.”
Gantz concluded with a broader warning: “This Holocaust Memorial Day, particularly with growing antisemitism in Europe, I call on the international community to be uncompromising in its crackdown on Holocaust denial and modern-day antisemitism.”
Romanian authorities have launched an investigation under the supervision of local prosecutors, though no suspects have been identified yet.
The timing of the attack, coinciding with Holocaust Memorial Day, only intensifies the outrage.’ (1)
For the record this is a photo taken of the damage: (2)
And here is another of the damage that I found uploaded onto Google Maps:
We can see from these photos that it was only a few gravestones in the jewish cemetery in Reghin that have been pushed over, many other gravestones that could have been attacked have been left alone and no anti-Semitic graffiti whatsoever is present.
Further we can see from other photos uploaded to Google Maps of the cemetery at different times that it is barely kept up by the jewish population of Reghin and the relatives of those buried there but who reside elsewhere such as in Israel.
For example, this photo is from July 2018:
This one is from the same time period:
This one is from September 2013:
This one is from the same time period:
This one is from November 2021:
The point is that the jewish cemetery in Reghin was not being taken care of by jews and that contrary to their claims about ‘anti-Semitism’; a major factor in such damage was almost certainly the poor state of repair of the cemetery in general as well as its location within Reghin.
To explain the point this is where the jewish cemetery is located in Reghin:
We can see that the cemetery is on the very edge of Reghin in a heavily wooded and generally secluded area, which we can see better by a zoomed image of what it looks like from above:
We can see that it is actually a small, ill-maintained and overgrown cemetery and this is beautifully demonstrated by its entrance which is this barely maintained pathway here:
This in turn is off a tiny side road with almost zero parking suggesting that the cemetery is barely visited, but rather interestingly a modern security camera has been installed as we can see in the below photographic still from Google Maps:
Now the reason for this security camera is likely the obvious one as far as secluded cemeteries of any type are concerned – this security camera was present in June 2023 when this photographic still was taken – which is that they are obvious places and magnets for anti-social behaviour especially illicit drinking and drug-taking as well as places that the homeless often use as relatively safe places to sleep, which can be done largely undisturbed at these locations.
This suggests – when combined with the lack of care of cemetery in general, the lack of significant damage beyond just a few headstones being pushed over and the lack of any typical anti-Semitic graffiti whatsoever – that the truth is that this was not an ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ but rather drunks/druggies and/or homeless people knocking/pushing over a few headstones at some point for reasons almost certainly unrelated to the cemetery being a jewish one and jews have only just noticed that this has happened and are trying to spin it as an ‘anti-Semitic hate crime’ in order to try and get a grant from the Romanian government to ‘restore’ the cemetery rather than pay for it themselves.
References
(1) https://worldisraelnews.com/jewish-cemetery-in-romania-vandalized-gravestones-toppled/
(2) Idem.
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