18 | NOVEMBER 12 • 2020
A
Jewish cemetery in
Grand Rapids was
found vandalized
with pro-Trump graffiti on
Monday, Nov. 2 — the day
before Election Day, as President
Trump prepared to close out his
reelection campaign in Grand
Rapids.
A caretaker at the Ahavas
Israel Cemetery, which is man-
aged by Congregation Ahavas
Israel in Grand Rapids, discov-
ered the graffiti at 8 a.m.
The graffiti spelled out
“TRUMP” and “MAGA
” on
multiple tombstones but does
not include any antisemitic lan-
guage or symbols.
“There were no other words
or symbols painted that would
clearly indicate that it was
an antisemitic
attack,
” Rabbi
David Krishef
of Congregation
Ahavas Israel told
the JN. “It may just
have been oppor-
tunistic vandalism
against a cemetery
which is isolated
and hard to see from the road,
on Halloween weekend, not an
attack against the Jewish com-
munity. We don’
t know.
”
Carolyn Normandin, Anti-
Defamation League-Michigan
regional director, told the Jewish
News it was unclear whether the
graffiti would rise to the level
of a hate crime under Michigan
law. A tweet from ADL-MI
sharing photos of the graffiti
went viral.
“It hurts when somebody
defaces your cemetery, no mat-
ter what their motivation may
have been,
” Krishef said. “It
feels like an attack. Whether it
is a deliberate attack, we don’
t
know.
”
But Krishef also thought back
to a different incident at another
Midwestern Jewish congrega-
tion: the 2019 fire that destroyed
a synagogue in Duluth, Minn.,
where his wife used to live.
That story attracted inter-
national media attention, and
“every interview focused on
antisemitism,
” Krishef said. But
the culprit was soon revealed
to be a homeless man who had
built a fire in the synagogue’
s
sukkah to keep warm and
couldn’
t put it out. The larger
media angle had been not only
false, but potentially harmful.
It’
s for this reason that Krishef
is deliberately not calling the
cemetery vandalism an act of
antisemitism.
“I don’
t want to feed that kind
of frenzy, where we see some-
thing the way we want to see
it because it fits the worldview
that we believe in,
” he said. “My
first reaction was, we better be
careful with this. We want to get
it right.
”
Within the congregation,
“people are angry, people
are upset, people are afraid,
”
Krishef said. He thanked
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, exec-
utive director of the Jewish
Community Relations Council/
AJC, and Steven Ingber, COO
of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit, for attend-
ing Ahavas Israel’
s Tuesday
morning minyan on Zoom and
showing their support for the
synagogue.
Edward Miller, cemetery
chair for Congregation Ahavas
Israel, said, “When I received
the call about the vandalism, I
was shocked and taken aback
that something like this could
happen to our cemetery. The
response from the community,
both local and from abroad, has
been overwhelming and hum-
bling.
”
Grand Rapids law enforce-
ment are currently investigating
the incident, but it’
s unclear
what, if any, leads they have to
work with.
ADL-MI announced a reward
of up to $3,000 for informa-
tion leading to the arrest and
conviction of the individual or
individuals responsible for the
vandalism.
“We are grateful to the com-
munity for its support and con-
cern, and to the Grand Rapids
Police Department for taking
this incident seriously and inves-
tigating it,
” Normandin said in a
press release.
A silver lining came in the
outpouring of community
response from all denomina-
tions.
Besides words of support,
there was also action. Before
the synagogue could even send
a cleanup crew to the cemetery,
anonymous volunteers scrubbed
off the graffiti themselves.
“I wish I knew who they were
so I could thank them in per-
son, Krishef said. “I had no idea
people would come so quickly.
I was really astonished by the
response.
”
Pro-Trump graffi
ti was ‘not necessarily’ antisemitism.
ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR
Grand Rapids Cemetery
Vandalized, But Community
Cleans It Up
PHOTO COURTESY OF ADL MICHIGAN
The graffiti spelled out
"TRUMP" and "MAGA"
but did not contain any
antisemitic language.
Rabbi David
J.B. Krishef,
Congregation
Ahavas Israel
COURTESY OF RABBI DAVID J.B. KRISHEF