Suspect arrested in vandalism of Boston Holocaust memorial  

Boston’s Holocaust memorial was vandalized, sending shockwaves through the community. 

Boston Police arrested a man suspected of using a rock to vandalize and shatter one of the panels of the New England Holocaust Memorial early Wednesday.

The suspect, James Isaac, 21, was charged by police with malicious destruction of personal property and destruction of a memorial place.

Isacc’s court-appointed attorney, Rebecca Kozak, entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf, saying he suffers from mental health issues, is “struggling considerably” and is participating in a partial hospitalization program at a mental health facility.

Isaac was held on $750 bail, but it was then revoked and he was held for violating the terms of his probation in other pending cases.

The vandalism “will not be tolerated in Boston,” said Boston Mayor Marty Walsh. “Together with the Boston police, we will make sure anyone involved in this act will be held responsible.”

“As a city we stand with the Jewish community,” Walsh stated at the memorial later in the morning.

Izzy Arbeiter, 92, a Holocaust survivor, who played a key role in building the memorial, came to see the damage late Wednesday morning, CBS Boston reported.

“The Jewish people are strong. The city of Boston is strong,” he said. He lost his entire family in the Auschwitz death camp.

Erected in 1995, the memorial is designed around six 54-foot-high luminous glass towers, which symbolize the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, the names of the six main death camps, and the six years during which Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution” took place from 1939-1945.

Millions of numbers are etched on the glass, representing the tattoos etched on many of the victims’ arms.

“When we hear the sound of broken glass, we shudder,” said Barry Shrage, CEO of Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies, referring to the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938.

By: World Israel News Staff

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