#Mount Carmel Jewish Cemetery

[nmajh-lgbt]

A little off topic: Stories from the Mount Carmel Jewish Cemetery

This is not what we usually post about, and I hope you will read and share:

In response to the recent desecration at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia of more than 500 headstones, the National Museum of American Jewish History is embarking on a collecting project to preserve the stories of the people who are buried there. The Museum is asking those who have friends or loved ones interred at Mount Carmel Cemetery to share a picture of their loved one (and/or the headstone, if available) and a personal story of up to 150 words. Please use the submit page or email the curators.

The project is also open to those whose families were affected by the desecration that occurred at St. Louis’s Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery last week.

https://mtcarmelstories.tumblr.com/ 

[mtcarmelstories]

Florida Girl, 6, Sends Painted Rocks For Vandalized Headstones In Jewish Cemeteries

A 6-year-old Florida girl has sent hundreds of rocks that she painted to place on headstones vandalized in Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia.

Ayel Morgenstern of Parkland took up the project after seeing a news report about the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in St. Louis and that one of the toppled headstones was that of her great-great-grandmother, Rebecca Pearl.

She reportedly sent more than 100 colorfully painted rocks to the cemetery in St. Louis, where Jewish day school students placed them on the gravestones. Another 150 rocks were sent to the Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Ayel said she painted rocks with ladybugs for good luck and hearts for more love, the Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported. She is aware of the Jewish tradition of putting a small rock or stone on a gravestone that one visits to honor the deceased.

She also was planning to send rocks to the Waad Hakolel Cemetery, also known as the Stone Road Cemetery, in Rochester, New York, where several headstones were toppled.

Read the full article here: http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/florida-girl-6-sends-painted-rocks-for-vandalized-headstones-in-jewish-cemeteries/

[unclesamsmisguidedclub]

Philadelphia - Another Jewish Cemetery Vandalized

Philadelphia – Another Jewish Cemetery Vandalized

Less than a week after a Jewish Cemetery in St. Louis was vandalized, 100 headstones at Mount Carmel in Philadelphia were toppled. Aaron Mallin  was visiting his father’s grave, and called police at around 9:40 a.m. Sunday to advise that 3 of his family’s headstones had been damaged. When police arrived, they found that 100 additional ones had been damaged sometime Saturday night. A “criminal…

[berniesrevolution]

At a military cemetery lined by conifers on the wooded slopes of Israel’s Mount Carmel, Safwan Marich walks besides the graves of local soldiers killed in active service for Israel.

“Look at these people,” said the retired officer. “Why did they fight? For whom? For their nation?”

“Now,” he continued, “the government is saying: ‘No, you didn’t die for your nation. It’s not your nation.’ ”

Marich and the slain soldiers interred here are members of Israel’s minority Druze community, known for its fierce dedication to the Israeli state and service in the armed forces. Hundreds have paid the ultimate price for Israel, but now their sacrifices feel hollow, Marich said, because of Israel’s new nation-state law.

Passed in July, the law has stirred fierce debate across Israeli society over what it means to be a minority in Israel and highlighted fundamental questions about equality and democracy here.

The bill enshrines in constitutional law key elements of Israel’s declaration of independence, including the Jewish nature of the state and its anthem, flag and capital.

It describes Jewish settlement as a “national value” that should be promoted and consolidated and elevates the status of Hebrew over Arabic, making Hebrew the sole official language. Most troubling for Marich and other members of Israel’s minorities, largely Arabs who make up 20 percent of the population, is what is missing from the law — the assurance in the declaration of independence of equal rights for all Israel’s citizens regardless of race or creed.

Marich works for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which has spoken out against the law and urged the government to adjust it.

Backers of the law, most prominently Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, argue it was necessary to ensure the future of Israel as a Jewish nation — and not an Israeli-Palestinian one, given its large Arab minority.

Its critics, who include international Jewish groups, Arab Israelis and human rights advocates, argue it is racist and damaging to Israeli democracy. A flurry of Supreme Court petitions have been lodged challenging it.

Some of the most passionate denunciations have come from the Druze, who are adherents of a cloistered sect that splintered from Islam in the 11th century. When Israel was created, the Arabic-speaking Druze entered what they describe as a “covenant of blood” with Jews, identifying with the struggles of another religious minority. At the request of their leader, Israel has recognized the Druze as an ethnic and religious group separate from the Arabs.

A tiny population of just 150,000 people, the Druze wield disproportionate influence in the state, fielding ministers and officers in the upper echelons of the military. When Marich and other Druze officers organized a protest in Tel Aviv last month, they drew tens of thousands of Israelis, including many Jews who came out in solidarity. Former heads of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the Israel Defense Forces were speakers. 

For the Druze, who thought they had proved their loyalty by serving in the military — first voluntarily and later under compulsory service — the law has been particularly wounding. Druze protest leaders, though, say they say they are in a unique position to push back against the law, while similar efforts by Arab Israelis could be dismissed as unpatriotic.

Israeli Arab politicians have said that the nation-state law simply formalizes long-standing “apartheid” policies. Many identify as Palestinians, separated from their brethren when Israel was created, and have long complained of facing deep discrimination in education, housing and policing.  

(Continue Reading)

[grandenchanterfiona]

Unsolved Mysteries had a family bible a dude was trying to find the owner of. And, even though the show didn’t mention it, the family was pretty obviously Jewish, considering the dude of the couple who owned the bible was buried in a Jewish cemetery, specifically Mount Carmel Cemetery in New York.

The bible belonged to a man called Charles Lazarus, and his wife Fannie Bergman.

They had five children, Joshua, Samuel, May, Blooma, and Reina.

Joshua married a woman named Dora Fleischmann. Samuel married a woman named  Ada Hassett, and Blooma married a man named Michael Michaelson and had a kid named Helen May in Denver.

I doubt posting this will help the dude find heirs, but just in case, maybe Jewish Geography TM will help where Unsolved Mysteries and newspaper articles don’t?: x

[buzzfeed]

Bomb threats were called into Jewish community centers and schools in at least 13 states on Monday, adding to a growing list of anti-Semitic incidents across the US this year.

Local media and police confirmed reports of threats on Monday in North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan, Alabama, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. No injuries were reported.

The latest rash of threats against Jewish centers is the fifth since the beginning of 2017, bringing the number of threats in the US and Canada to at least 80 reported before the end of February.

The threats on Monday come one day after a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia was desecrated. On Sunday, around 100 headstones were knocked over at the Mount Carmel Cemetery in northeast Philadelphia, police said.

Continue Reading.

[nprfreshair]

"For the first 38 years of my life, if I wanted to see a dramatically desecrated Jewish cemetery, I had to fly to Eastern Europe," says commentator Daniel Torday. He reflects on the vandalism at Philadelphia's Mount Carmel cemetery.

Searching For Meaning After A Jewish Cemetery Is Desecrated

Photo: Jacqueline Larma

[jewishvirtuallibrary-blog]

Video of music of Rena Galibova.

Rena Galibova was a Bukharian Jewish woman born in Kokand, Russian Turkestan in 1915.  Her father, who educated her, was a theatrical producer and would encourage her from a young age to perform.  At the age of 13 she would start her career in music and by the age of 18, she was working for Radio Tashkent alongside other talented Bukharin Jewish artists.  In 1938, she moved with her husband Gavriel Samandarov, a well-known Bukharian Jewish writer at the time, to Stalinabad, Tajikistan.  

 In 1939, Rena Galibova was awarded the title of Merited Artist of Tajikistan and in 1941 she was given the Order of Lenin after she performed in front of Joseph Stalin. When World War II broke out between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1941, Rena Galibova traveled around the Soviet Union to perform for soldiers and raise moral.  In 1957 she would perform in the famous Bolshoi theater and, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, she would move to the United States where she passed away in 1995.  She is buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens, New York.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Thousands denounce anti-Semitic attacks in Philadelphia

By Betsey Piette

When news surfaced on Feb. 26 that hundreds of gravestones had been toppled and damaged at the Mount Carmel Jewish Cemetery in northeast Philadelphia and several Jewish centers had received bomb threats, area communities were quick to respond. On March 2, thousands turned out for a lunchtime “Stand Against Hate” rally outside the Liberty Bell at 6th and Market streets.

The desecration of headstones at Mount Carmel followed a pattern seen earlier in February in St. Louis, Mo., and at a Jewish cemetery in Rochester, N.Y., on March 2.  An increase in bomb threats against Jewish centers across the country has also been reported. These anti-Semitic attacks are taking place at the same time as a spike in fire bombings of mosques across the U.S.

These attacks are not casual acts of anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, but a clear reflection of the agenda of alt-right elements now serving as advisors in President Donald Trump’s White House. Trump’s lip service in condemning these terrorist acts during his congressional address on Feb. 28 fails to cover up his open embrace of Stephen Bannon, Reince Priebus and other openly white-supremacist, anti-Semitic Islamophobes and xenophobes.

[democratsinthesouth]

But please don’t compare Donald Trump and the Republican party to Nazis, because they totally didn’t open up the door for this.

[nmajh-lgbt]

To read more entries from our newest collecting project, click here.

By Paul P. Murphy, CNN Video by Sonia Moghe, CNN 

Philadelphia (CNN), March 13, 2017 - When Aaron Mallin entered Mount Carmel Cemetery to pay his respects to his late father, he noticed right away that something was wrong.

A headstone near the entrance had been toppled."I walked in further, I noticed two over there. Three over there," he said. "I just couldn't believe it."

Mallin was the first to discover that vandals had desecrated some 175 headstones in the Jewish cemetery here last month, an act being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Many of the fallen headstones are adorned with the Star of David and inscribed in Hebrew, offering tender glimpses into the lives buried there: beloved daughter, dear mother, loving father.

But what were they really like? CNN, collaborating with the National Museum of American Jewish History, is telling some of their stories.

Read more at the link for videos and interviews with family members....

[mtcarmelstories]

By Paul P. Murphy, CNN Video by Sonia Moghe, CNN

Philadelphia (CNN), March 13, 2017 - When Aaron Mallin entered Mount Carmel Cemetery to pay his respects to his late father, he noticed right away that something was wrong.

A headstone near the entrance had been toppled."I walked in further, I noticed two over there. Three over there," he said. "I just couldn't believe it."  

Mallin was the first to discover that vandals had desecrated some 175 headstones in the Jewish cemetery here last month, an act being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Many of the fallen headstones are adorned with the Star of David and inscribed in Hebrew, offering tender glimpses into the lives buried there: beloved daughter, dear mother, loving father.

But what were they really like? CNN, collaborating with the National Museum of American Jewish History, is telling some of their stories.

Read more at the link for videos and interviews with family members....

[valencing]

Two attacks on Jewish cemeteries in the last week have resulted in an outpouring of more than $136,000 in donations from thousands of Muslims and others, who have also pledged to financially support Jewish institutions if there are further attacks.

Jewish organizations have reported a sharp increase in harassment. The JCC Association of North America, which represents Jewish community centers, said 21 Jewish institutions, including eight day schools, had received bomb threats on Monday.

Two Muslim activists, Linda Sarsour and Tarek El-Messidi, asked Muslims to donate $20,000 in a crowdfunding effort to repair hundreds of Jewish headstones that were toppled near St. Louis last week. That goal was reached in three hours.

Though the activists do not have cost estimates yet, Mr. El-Messidi said on Monday that the money raised would most likely be enough to repair the graves near St. Louis and in Philadelphia, where about 100 headstones were toppled on Sunday.

Any extra money will be held in a fund to help after attacks on Jewish institutions in the future, he said. That could mean removing a spray-painted swastika or repairing the kind of widespread damage seen in the graveyards.

About a third of the donations have come from non-Muslims — Ellen DeGeneres and J. K. Rowling are among the celebrities who have expressed support — but Mr. El-Messidi said it was especially important for Muslims to support Jews as they deal with anti-Semitic attacks.

“I hope our Muslim community, just as we did last week with St. Louis, will continue to stand with our Jewish cousins to fight this type of hatred and bigotry,” he said.

Since the start of the year, the association said, Jewish community centers and day schools in 30 states and a Canadian province have reported 90 threats.

Monday’s threats, all hoaxes, affected centers in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia.

[...]

Mr. El-Messidi, who lives in Philadelphia, walked through the vandalized Mount Carmel Jewish Cemetery on Sunday. He said he saw people huddled over the gravestones, weeping.

“We’re in a very different time in the U.S. when people cannot even rest in peace after they pass away,” he said, “where people have to be worried about their ancestors’ graves.”

[matterconcern-blog]

New Post has been published on Matter Concern

New Post has been published on https://matterconcern.com/archives/31172

Police Investigate Attack at Jewish Cemetery in Philadelphia

More than 100 headstones were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia over the weekend, less than a week after a similar attack in Missouri. The police are investigating. Photo: AP Subscribe to the WSJ channel here: http://bit.ly/14Q81Xy More from the Wall Street Journal: Visit WSJ.com:...

[antisemitism-eu]

France: Anti-Jewish sentiment “metastasized over a period of time” and life has become “intolerable”

Via The Times of Israel:

Israeli Apartheid Week in several Belgian universities

Anti-Semitism is taking on potentially “pandemic” dimensions globally, even in the US, and if left unchecked could grow into an immensely serious threat, one of American Jewry’s most senior leaders said this week, calling on world leaders to convene a global summit to forcefully denounce the phenomenon.

 “I think we’re seeing a pandemic in formation,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, who heads the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “I don’t think it’s here. I think America’s situation is different from Europe. But the potential is there.”  (...)

“We saw anti-Semitism in Britain, we saw it in France, and now we see it’s spreading everywhere,” Hoenlein told The Times of Israel in its Jerusalem office on Sunday. “Look at the numbers of incidents in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of the world. And now we see in America swastikas being painted, other expressions [such as phoned-in] threats or aggression against kids on campuses. So it spreads. It’s not isolated to one geographic locale. It’s like a virus that spreads. And you have to declare it for what it is.” (...)

The interview with Hoenlein was conducted mere hours before news emerged of an apparently anti-Semitic act of vandalism that took place in his hometown of Philadelphia. Several tombstones in the city’s Jewish Mount Carmel Cemetery had been toppled in what the Israeli government called a “shocking” and worrying act. 

“I don’t think now it’s a direct threat to Jewish existence or Jewish survival,” Hoenlein said about general trend of anti-Semitic acts committed recently in the US, including the desecration of Jewish cemeteries or bomb threats made to Jewish community centers. “I do think that this cancer, left unchecked, spreads and becomes more and more of a threat.”

The best example of such a process can be identified in France, where anti-Jewish sentiment “metastasized over a period of time,” he said. “It didn’t just happen,” he added, citing recent reports of attacks on Jews, and information from his own relatives who live in France telling him life has become “intolerable” there.

European governments have denounced such incidents and increased measures to protect Jews, Hoenlein said. “But we can’t deny the fact that anti-Semitism today is no longer something that has to be done under the cloak of darkness, with the fear of repercussions. Those restrictions are gone. And I think we have to reimpose it and there have to be standards set. That’s why I want government officials saying this is not acceptable, just like racism and bigotry in any other form is not acceptable.” 

read more The New Antisemite: http://ift.tt/2mDN8A4

[ordinarytalk]

Forgot to post this yesterday - I went to the Stand Against Hate rally in Philly that was organized in response to the Jewish cemetery that was vandalized, Mount Carmel cemetery. The crowd was pretty decent for noon on a Thursday on short notice with little advertisement.

In addition to a lot of Jewish community leaders, there were leaders from multiple religions all there denouncing the hate crimes. Governor Wolf and Attorney General Shapiro spoke, too. Everyone made a point of thanking the Muslim community for their support and donations. A lot of people spoke about their grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ stories of escaping the Holocaust and being buried here, only to have their grave desecrated. One of the speakers described the life of a relative who was a veteran who fought for this country, and how it felt to see his gravestone kicked over.

The reward for information about the perpetrators is approaching $70,000.