A group from an American Catholic college restored a Jewish cemetery in a Belarusian village.
Fifteen students and four professors from the Franciscan Siena College in Albany, N.Y., found and erected 120 toppled gravestones at the Rubiazhevichi cemetery in three days. They also rebuilt the entrance to the cemetery with the help of local residents.
Those who worked on the reconstruction say the cemetery still needs much work. About 400 Jews from the local ghetto who perished during the Holocaust are buried there, according to Radio Liberty.
The American volunteers, all non-Jews, paid their own way to Belarus. The Voluntas international fund and American nongovernmental institutions sponsored the restoration.
U.S. charge d’affaires Jonathan Moore visited the site of the reconstruction and told JTA it offered an outstanding example of private cooperation between Belarus and the United States.
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