Activist Linda Sarsour has raised $71,000 less than a day after launching a fundraiser to benefit the Jewish cemetery in Missouri that was the subject of a massive act of vandalism.
As many as 200 headstones were vandalized over the weekend at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Missouri. On Tuesday, Sarsour, a prominent Muslim activist and recently one of four principal organizers of the Women’s March on Washington, established a fundraising page for the cemetery.
Within three hours, according to a note on the fundraiser page, Sarsour had surpassed her original goal of raising $20,000 to repair damage to support the cemetery. “Any additional funds raised in this campaign will assist other vandalized Jewish centers nationwide,” the page noted.
“Through this campaign, we hope to send a united message from the Jewish and Muslim communities that there is no place for this type of hate, desecration, and violence in America,” the fundraising page reads. “We pray that this restores a sense of security and peace to the Jewish-American community who has undoubtedly been shaken by this event.”
President Donald Trump recently addressed directly, for the first time, a wave of bomb threats made against Jewish community centers nationwide. White House press secretary Sean Spicer emphasized those comments later in the day at a press briefing. But when asked about a dramatic spike in anti-Muslim hate groups during the same briefing, documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Spicer spent his answer talking about “radical Islamic terrorism.”
Correction: This post originally misstated the location of the vandalized cemetery. It is in University City, Missouri, not Chesterfield.
