The desecration of a Jewish cemetery near Quebec City last week, the second such act in the province in six weeks, has raised demands for swift measures by the authorities to bring the culprits to justice.
The latest target was a cemetery in Ste. Foy, a Quebec suburb, where 31 gravestones were overturned. They were spray-painted with swastikas and “ZOG,” an acronym for “Zionist Occupation Government.”
The acronym is used by rabidly anti-Semitic, white-supremacist groups such as the Aryan Nations, which has been active in the northwestern United States and Canada.
Some of the graves desecrated date back to 1862.
The Canadian Jewish Congress’ Quebec Region and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada reacted with “disbelief” at the desecration.
The cemetery vandalism was the first in the vicinity of Quebec City.
But since August 1989, two Jewish cemeteries in the Montreal area have been attacked, the most recent in March.
The latest desecrations coincided “with the alarming occurrence of desecrations in France, Sweden and Italy,” the two Jewish organizations said in a joint statement released here.
The statement called on “the minister of public security to use all available resources in an intensive, coordinated effort to find those responsible and bring them to justice.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
