(JTA) — Four graves were destroyed and others covered by rubble as a flood swept through Beirut’s only Jewish cemetery.
The flood in the Lebanese capital on Thursday destroyed a retaining wall in the city’s only Jewish cemetery, whose graves date back to the 1820s, according to Agence France-Presse. Most of the cemetery’s 3,407 graves remain intact, according to Nagi Georges Zeidan, an expert on Lebanese Jewry.
Some sarcophagi and headstones were displaced, and rubble covered over other remains. The graves that were destroyed date to the 1940s, according to Zeidan, who volunteers at the cemetery.
Once home to thousands of Jews, Lebanon’s remaining Jewish community numbers only 29 today, Zeidan says.
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