Cemetery marred by vandalism reconsecrated

PORTLAND – Lea Markuse’s husband was laid to rest in the cemetery hit during an anti-Semitic vandalism spree last month.

She and her husband, Oskar, survived the Holocaust, and the red swastikas spray-painted on gravestones at Mount Sinai Cemetery meant something very personal to her.

Markuse was at the cemetery crying the day after the swastikas and slurs against blacks were discovered. She returned Sunday for the reconsecration of the old Jewish cemetery on Hicks Street.

She and about 100 others gathered as Jews, Christians and Muslims reaffirmed the old saying “Never Again” and watched the planting of a tree of life.

Stephen Hirshon, the cemetery’s acting president, thanked the community for coming together. He said that members of a nearby mosque sent letters to synagogues offering support and noting, “We are your brothers in Abraham’s faith.”

Hirshon thanked everyone who stepped forward, but reserved special thanks for Police Chief Michael Chitwood, who assigned six people to the case.

A 16-year-old Portland boy has been charged with aggregated criminal mischief, violation of probation and desecration and defacement of a cemetery site.

Chitwood, meanwhile, said that it was the community that deserved the praise. He said that the turnout to the ceremony showed that Portland is committed to being an inclusive, accepting city.

He said he was at Mount Sinai “not only to rededicate this beautiful cemetery, but also to send a powerful message.”

Steve Wessler, the former Maine assistant attorney general who now runs the University of Southern Maine’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Hate Violence, said that “when something like this happens, it really takes the measure of an entire community. … When we can come together, the healing is much faster and much longer lasting.”