WISSINOMING – Dozens of headstones at a Jewish cemetery in the Wissinoming section of Philadelphia have been broken and overturned.
The Philadelphia police say this was an act of vandalism at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery on the corner of Frankford and Cheltenham avenues.
Aaron Mallin of North Jersey made the disturbing discovery Sunday when he came to visit his father’s grave.
“It’s just very disheartening that such a thing would take place,” Mallin said.
He says he knows this doesn’t look good, but is hoping that somehow this wasn’t an anti-Semitic attack.
“I’m hoping it was maybe just some drunk kids. But the fact that there’s so many it leads one to think it could have been targeted,” Mallin said.
The damage is widespread all across the cemetery with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of headstones affected.
If in fact this was vandalism, Mallin just doesn’t understand how someone could do this.
“It’s just very heartbreaking,” Mallin said.
Action News will continue to update this story as more information including a cause of the damage becomes available.
Dozens of headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia were overturned over the weekend, the second such incident against a Jewish cemetery in less than two weeks.
Police say dozens, perhaps as many as 100 tombstones at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery were broken or overturned over the weekend.
The vandalism was first discovered by Aaron Mallin, who came to Mt. Carmel to visit his father’s grave Sunday morning.
“It’s just very disheartening that such a thing would take place,” Mallin said.
“I’m hoping it was maybe just some drunk kids. But the fact that there’s so many, it leads one to think it could have been targeted.”
Last week Tuesday more than 100 headstones at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery near St. Louis were vandalized in a similar incident.
The desecration of the Mt. Caramel Cemetery is not the first attack on a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. In 2015, 124 tombstones were toppled at the Adath Jeshurun Cemetery.