Police, Jews Warn Against Vigilantes After British Graves Are Desecrated

Police and community leaders have warned against the establishment of Jewish vigilante groups, in the angry aftermath of the desecration last weekend of 72 gravestones at the Blackley Cemetery in Manchester.

Plans by the Stamford Hill Hasidic community of North London to fund a private security force have also been criticized.

The vandalism is the latest in a spate of attacks on Jewish cemeteries in Britain, and the circulation of viciously anti-Semitic literature.

The gravestones in Manchester were daubed with swastikas and the emblem of the British National Party, a neo-Nazi organization that maintains ties with groups of the extreme right in other countries. Some headstones were smashed.

The police said the vandalism appeared to be the work of neo-Nazis, specifically the work of roving gangs belonging to the National Party.

Police are investigating a possible link between the Manchester desecration and recent anti-Semitic vandalism in the city of Leeds and in Edmonton in north London.

Greater Manchester Chief Constable James Anderton interrupted his vacation to issue a statement expressing outrage at the attack, and promised every police effort to find the perpetrators. The Greater Manchester and Yorkshire forces will work together on the investigation.

However, some Manchester community members want to take responsibility for security matters, advocating the creation of vigilante groups to guard Jewish property against anti-Semitic attack.

VIGILANTE GROUPS CONDEMNED

The idea for a vigilante group has been condemned by both the president of the Manchester Jewish Representative Council, Joe Nathan, and the chairman of its Council of Synagogues, Sonny Fromson.

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews added that while all organizations responsible for cemeteries had been advised to increase security, police assistance was vital through extra patrols.

Though against vigilante groups, a Manchester police official welcomed the idea of “increased public vigilance, in the sense of improved security at Jewish properties.”

In the heavily Jewish area of Stamford Hill in northern London, Chief Police Superintendent Peter Twist expressed alarm at moves by the community to pay security firms for private patrols through strictly Orthodox areas.

“Approaches have been made to private security firms to consider mounting patrols,” he said. “Such patrols would cause me concern.”

Jackie Landau, a member of the Satmar Hasidic community in Stamford Hill, said he had been approached to contribute to the cost of private security and would be pleased to do so. “I know my street will be 100 percent behind such an idea.”

In another development last weekend, virulently anti-Semitic leaflets were placed in the windows of local Jewish newspaper offices and shops. It is the latest in a spate of anti-Semitic circulars that have been decried by not only Jews but non-Jews and members of government.