The Nation - News from Sept. 20, 1988

Thieves stole 15 bronze plaques from graves at a Jewish cemetery in New York, one day after mourners buried six Torah scrolls destroyed in a Brooklyn synagogue arson and one day before the start of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Judaism’s holiest holiday. The plaques were stolen “indiscriminately” and there was no other desecration of the graves at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Queens, police Sgt. Raymond O’Donnell said. The bronze plaques, each worth about $200, likely will be melted down to sell, O’Donnell said. Two youths, ages 12 and 15, have been charged with arson, burglary and criminal mischief in the burning of the scrolls.