Vandals Topple Headstones

Bellingham, WA – Bellingham resident Barbara Howard, 72, takes her dog Happy for a walk almost every day in the Bayview Cemetery where her son is buried.

During her walk last Wednesday, she bore a somber look as she observed the work of vandals who knocked down 45 headstones during Easter weekend.

“I’m furious because this is sacred ground,” Howard said. “I don’t care whether you call it a hate crime or a prank, it’s not all right.”

The headstones are located in Beth Israel Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery the Congregation Beth Israel privately owns, located inside Bayview Cemetery on Lakeway Drive. Vandals already struck the cemetery earlier this year. Vandals overturned 58 headstones in Beth Israel Cemetery in February, Bellingham Police Lt. Craige Ambrose said.

Howard said she has seen numerous cases of vandalism in the Bayview Cemetery, such as vases placed at graves and trees knocked down.

Chabad of Bellingham, a branch of the national Chabad House organization that helps Jewish people connect and socialize, is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of the vandals, Rabbi Levi Backman said.

Backman said Chabad is a second home for Jews at any level of observance or background.

Backman founded the Chabad Jewish Student Organization at Western in February 2005. He said he loves the Bellingham community for its open-minded and liberal atmosphere.

“I wish to believe it was only one person who did this and we don’t have more than one person with an anti-Semitism view in Whatcom County,” Backman said.

Backman said he thinks the vandalism is a hate crime against the Jewish community.

“I’ve discussed this with many other people, and it doesn’t take any rocket scientist to agree that it’s anti-Semitism,” Backman said.

Yael Shuval, a Chabad Jewish Student Organization board member, said she felt physically ill when she heard about the headstones.

“This is more disturbing than a direct attack on an alive Jewish person,” Shuval said. “In my opinion, it’s sacrilegious and cowardly.”

Bayview Cemetery employees learned about the vandalism after someone reported it to the Bellingham Police Department Easter morning, cemetery maintenance aid Matt Fox, 30, said. He said he started repairing the headstones last Wednesday.

Fox said vandalism detracts from time spent on the other cemetery landscaping projects, such as lawn mowing and beautifying the grounds.

“It’s annoying because we’re taken away from what we should be doing,” Fox said.

Cemetery technician Troy Cummings, 39, said vandals have targeted the Bayview Cemetery 12 times in the 18 years he has worked there.

“I’ve picked these things up so many times it’s not even funny,” he said.

Fox said he believes several people were involved in the vandalism because the largest headstones weighed 300 to 400 pounds.

Ambrose said the police are still investigating the vandalism. He said it will be difficult to find suspects because no one knows whether the vandalism was a prank or seriously anti-Semitic.

He said fingerprinting is not an option because the police can’t take fingerprints on the granite headstones. He said investigators’ best chance to find the culprits is by receiving a tip from someone with information about the event.

Howard said she hopes whoever committed the vandalism will have to publicly make amends.

“This is hate crime as far as I’m concerned,” Howard said. “I hope they have to talk to the school, the synagogue and apologize to all the families who have someone buried there,” she said.