I Hope My Grave Is Desecrated By Someone Important

It would have to be a real hands-on leader, a person who revels in leading by example.

By Mor-Tal Koyle

At some point we’re just going to have to accept that haters will be haters and that the desecration of Jewish graves is all but inevitable. Law enforcement has proved either ineffective or unwilling, and it’s basically a matter of time before every last Jewish burial plot falls victim. That being said, I hope my grave at east gets desecrated by someone important.

Generally we associate vandalism against tombs with people unlikely to achieve prominence. They lack the will to directly harm the living, but still want to put a scare into Jews. A few will eventually develop the chutzpah to shout antisemitic epithets, maybe toss some rocks, but as a rule we’re not talking about folks with the guts to do anything big. But a guy can dream. It’s always conceivable that a gang of Jew-haters will happen to be going through the cemetery where I’m buried, and its leader – someone who can think bigger than the others – will engage in some headstone-toppling along the way.

Well, why stop there? Once we’re already considering scenarios in which someone not-forgettable is the one who smashes, burns, knocks over, or defaces my grave, let’s not rule out an organized effort with somebody high-ranking at the helm. It would have to be a real hands-on leader, a person who revels in leading by example. That way, if my tombstone happens to be in the right place, my remains could have the distinction of being desecrated by a person of real influence.

Not that it’s a good idea to get carried away with this fantasy. The vast, vast majority of desecration is perpetrated by nobodies. Even the larger-scale projects – say, using Jewish tombstones as construction materials – can hardly be described as epic. Building a latrine out of Jewish grave markers on the Mount of Olives, as useful as it may have been to soldiers of the Jordanian Legion, is unlikely to have involved anyone over the rank of captain. It’s a sure bet King Hussein himself never set foot there while the desecration was underway. Still, a guy can dream.

A guy can also act. I’m not going to just sit here and let random chance dictate who desecrates my grave. I’m going to take concrete steps (see what I did there?) to make sure somebody of societal significance is the one who perpetrates the defacement. If we’re going to suffer because the haters insist on seeing us as money-grubbers, we might as well profit from it. Time to open a business selling the rights to desecrate specific graves. If the wrong person draws a swastika on my headstone, you can bet the person who lawfully purchased the right to do so will take care of that vandal one way or the other.

It’s a win-win situation. As win-win as any situation has been for Jews, anyway.