What IS the fascination for desecrating tombstones and cemeteries? Kids do it and have done it all the time. I wonder if it’s no some subconscious fear of death, and this is a way of confronting that fear?
I suspect it was originally looked at as a ‘hate crime’ because it was a Jewish cemetery, but then it turned out the the kids just were wreaking havoc without the first thought as to the nature or religion of the cemetery. Could well be that the kids themselves are Jewish, it’s all in a Jewish neighborhood and it was just THERE.
Hartford is about 40% Hispanic, 40% black. The remaining white population is probably on the elderly side.
Lots of Jewish cemeteries in places where Jews no longer live in any great numbers - Newark comes to mind.
Their parents should pay for new gravemarkers to replace all the ones they broke and the kids should clean up the entire cemetery once a week for a year. They they should watch every movie or film clip ever made about the Holocaust and the history of the Jews, read every book ever written about it and then write a 25,000 word report which they should read aloud in their class.
It’s past time to hold kids and their parents responsible.
There are no longer any Jewish neighborhoods in Hartford.