Jewish cemeteries in Egypt now used for dumping garbage

Egypt's Vetogate has a series of articles about the disgraceful condition of Egypt's Jewish cemeteries.

The leader of the almost extinct Jewish community, Magda Haroun, said that she visited one cemetery nnd saw boys had urinated on the tombstones.

Vetogate visited the cemetery in Alexandria (pictured above) and reported that it was being used as a garbage dump and was being encroached by street vendors. Tombstones and mausoleums are cracked, broken or otherwise in serious disrepair.

The newspaper talks about one cemetery that is the second-oldest Jewish burial ground in the world after the Mount of Olives. It includes such famous rabbis as Saadia Gaon.

The newspaper also interviewed a number of Islamic clerics who all said that respect for the dead is a high priority in Islam and that there was no justification to treat these cemeteries badly.

The newspaper goes on to call for the restoration of these cemeteries - and the resumption of tourism to visit them.