Volunteers removed swastikas, graffiti from Jewish cemetery near Cleveland
Roughly 20 volunteers removed red spray-painted swastikas that defaced headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn, just west of Cleveland, Sunday afternoon.
Photos posted on Facebook by the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and a report from News 5 Cleveland, an Akron Beacon Journal partner, showed the vandalized headstones at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery.
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"Special thanks to the approximately 20 people who took it upon themselves to remove the graffiti discovered at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery earlier today," the Jewish Federation of Cleveland wrote on Facebook. "Further proof of the strength of our community and the unwavering commitment to one another that connects us."
Although swastikas did not originate with Nazi Germany, they became synonymous with the fascist regime that also carried out the Holocaust during World War II, which killed an estimated six million Jews and millions of others in the early 1940s.
This incident comes over one month since Hamas attacked Israel in early October killing more than 1,200 Israelis, according to estimates by the Israeli government.
In retaliation, the Israeli government carried out an aerial bombardment and an ongoing ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, located along the Mediterranean Sea. The Gaza Health Ministry put the Palestinian death toll at more than 11,000.
To learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see the USA Today story outlining the conflict's origins.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Jewish cemetery near Cleveland graffitied with swastikas
