It wasn’t anti-Semitic vandalism that toppled five headstones last Saturday at the mostly Jewish Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, according to the NYPD. Police found no signs of vandalism, nor were any typical graffiti jobs on or near the stones. Conclusion: some gravestones just fall over eventually.
But State Assemblyman Dov Hikind is not convinced, and demands further investigation. “The people who first reported this to us were individuals who walk by … on the way to synagogue on Shabbos, and they were the ones who saw something that looked wrong to them,’’ Hikind told the NY Post on Sunday, insisting that if those eyewitnesses had seen the toppled stones before, they would have reported it.
“We’re not talking about stones that are down, that they want to repair,” Hikind said. “We’re talking about tombstones where if you look at it, you say, ‘Someone vandalized it.’”
A spokesman for the police said that the results of an investigation showed that age and weather conditions were most likely the cause for the headstones being toppled.
The five fallen headstones were discovered only a few days after the discovery of hundreds of toppled headstones in Jewish cemeteries in Rochester, Philadelphia and St. Louis.
NY Assembly Member Dov Hikind reported on his Facebook page: “I received a call after Shabbos from the Boro Park Shomrim that some tombstones at Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn were down. I’ve spoken with the police who are investigating. They’ve found a cut in the cemetery fence and are taking the matter very seriously. Chesky Klein from my staff is there now and I will be there in the morning.”
Maybe the cut in the fence was also time and weather-related. Entropy, what’re you gonna’ do…