New Zealand Antisemitism Watch
Antisemites in New Zealand demonstrate their incredible bravery by vandalizing a Jewish cemetery: NZ Police investigating desecration of Jewish graves.
Vandals smashed historic headstones and cut a swastika into a lawn at a Jewish cemetery overnight, authorities said Friday. The attack came just hours after two Israeli men were imprisoned for passport fraud and named as spies by the New Zealand government.
“Someone’s used some sort of stick or tool to gouge swastikas into the grass around the graves. Words like ‘Sieg Heil’ have been scratched into the footpath,” a city council spokesman said.
“People are speculating the attack may have been sparked by the two Israeli men and the passport case,” the spokesman added.
Wellington Botanic Gardens manager David Sole said the Jewish section of Bolton St. cemetery near the center of the New Zealand capital was a sea of broken marble and overturned tombstones when he visited Friday morning.
Jewish Council President David Zwartz said there was a direct connection between the case and “people here feel they can take it out on Jews.”
“It seems to me that it’s Israel-bashing one day, Jew-bashing the next day,” he told National Radio.