Pictured Above: Workers make repairs to the Boston-based New England Holocaust Memorial, which was vandalized in late June and rededicated July 11. Credit: Riva Bergel

(JNS.org) Hundreds of people gathered in Boston Tuesday to rededicate the New England Holocaust Memorial after it was vandalized in late June.

The vandalism of the memorial drew swift condemnation from Jewish and city leaders. Boston police arrested James E. Isaac, 21, as the prime suspect. Isaac was charged with willful and malicious destruction of property as well as destruction of a place of memorial.

Authorities said the suspect threw a rock at the 54-foot-high glass memorial, destroying a 9-foot-long panel. During Tuesday’s rededication ceremony, which was organized by Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council, it was mentioned that mental illness—rather than anti-Semitism—might have instigated Isaac’s alleged vandalism.

“We are here to renew and rededicate this memorial and speak to its importance along the Freedom Trail,” Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said at the ceremony, adding, “We are all in this together.”

The New England Holocaust Memorial, constructed in 1995, was designed with six luminous glass towers symbolizing the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and the six main Nazi death camps.

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