CoE Congress calls on local authorities to protect Jewish cemeteries

The Council of Europe (CoE) Congress of local and regional authorities has called on its members to take responsibility for Jewish cemeteries in order to protect against vandalism and neglect.

In a draft resolution adopted on Thursday during its 28th session, the Congress urged local authorities "to take the necessary steps within their responsibilities to protect and preserve" Jewish cemeteries, both as holy sites for the Jewish people, and as European heritage sites of cultural importance.

The resolution has particular significance in Alsace, the region where the CoE maintains its headquarters, and which saw the desecration of over 300 tombs in a Jewish cemetery in the town of Sarre-Union (80km from Strasborug), on Feb. 15, 2015.

Participants in the debate preceding the adoption of the resolution underlined, however, that the issue was shared by European communities as a whole.

Yossi Beilin, former Israeli Minister of Justice, indicated during the debate that before the Second World War, Eastern Europe held 20,000 Jewish cemeteries. The International Jewish Cemetery Project now counts less than half that number of burial sites in the region.

In calling for action to preserve remaining Jewish cemeteries, the CoE Congress responds to a resolution passed in 2012 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which urges CoE member states to "develop initiatives to enhance the management, maintenance, preservation and restoration of Jewish burial sites."

The CoE Congress also emphasized that its resolution could possibly be applied to burial sites for other religious communities. Muslim cemeteries have also been targets of vandalism in Europe, as was the case in June 2010, when tombs were desecrated in Strasbourg's Robertsau Cemetery, just a few kilometers from the CoE headquarters. Endit