ROME (JTA) — Vandals painted a swastika and an anti-Semitic slogan on the wall of the tomb of a late Chasidic leader near Warsaw.
The tomb of Yitzhak Meir Alter (1798-1866) and his grandson Yehudah Arie Leib, located in the Jewish cemetery in Góra Kalwaria, a small town near Warsaw known in Yiddish as Ger, was desecrated with a swastika and the epithet "Jude Raus."
The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland reported the vandals also blocked the entrance door to the tomb with construction foam.
The tomb is a place of pilgrimage for followers of the Gerrer Chasidic dynasty, which was founded by Yitzhak Meir Alter. The foundation also reported that stones reportedly were thrown at a bus transporting visitors who had just been to the cemetery.
In connection with the incidents, the foundation sent a protest letter to the office of the Warsaw Police Commander for the Protection of Human Rights.
