A gang of youths used hammers and blocks in an attack on the walled-off Jewish section of a cemetery in Belfast last Friday. Seventeen Jewish graves were destroyed in the organised attack. The Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigating the incident as a hate crime. Some of the graves dated back to the 1870s. Bishop Noel Treanor of the Irish diocese of Down and Connor said, ‘What a tragedy and blemish on our society that the long-present, beloved and treasured Jewish families of our community should suffer yet again such actions of disrespect and violence to the memory of their beloved dead; and the regrettable outworking of a latent xenophobia that stalks the minds of some.’