(JTA) — About 100 headstones were overturned and broken at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia.
The vandalism at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery in the Wissinoming section of Philadelphia was discovered on Sunday.
Police estimated that 75-100 headstones were damaged, according to Philly.com.
The discovery comes nearly a week after over 150 headstones were discovered overtuned and damaged at the Chesed Shel Emeth Jewish cemetery in St. Louis.
It is not known who committed the vandalism or if the motive was anti-Semitism.
A crowdfunding campaign launched by two Muslim Americans to help cover the costs of the damages of the vandalism at the St. Louis cemetery, which has raised $130,000 in the last week, announced in an update on the campaign’s webpage that it has reached out to the Philadelphia cemetery to offer funds from the campaign to help repair the damage.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emanuel Nahshon in a statement called the cemetery vandalism in Philadelphia “shocking and a source of worry,” and noted that Israel has “full confidence in U.S. authorities to catch and punish culprits.”
“Evil and hatred must be stopped. Now,” the statement concluded, in the first such direct address to the U.S. government since the beginning of the Trump administration a little over a month ago.
