The desecration last week of a Jewish cemetery in this city was denounced today as a “purposeless exhibition of depravity and irreverence” by Arnold Harris, executive secretary of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Community Council of Essex County. The scene of the vandalism was the Grove Street Cemetery where 30 gravestones were overturned, causing an estimated $2, 000 in damages.
Noting that Protestant and Catholic cemeteries were broken into during the same weekend Mr. Harris declared: “There is no more basis to describe this as anti-Semitic than to regard the depredations in the other two cemeteries as anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant.”
The Grove Street Cemetery was broken into last June and 75 stones were knocked over, causing some $5. 000 in damages.
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