‘Tis the season, I suppose. Perhaps less malice and forethought in the latter…
From The NY Post: Tombstones desecrated in New Jewish Cemetery in Riga (Latvia). More than 100 tombstones were vandalized.
From NPR: Rare thorn tree with ties to the earliest days of Christianity cut down. It blooms twice a year — during the Christmas season and again around Easter.
In more recent times, local children honored its current incarnation each year by cutting sprigs to place on Queen Elizabeth II’s Christmas dining table…
Katherine Gorbing, the director of Glastonbury Abbey, said the tree originally came from the Middle East and is a type of thorn tree common in Lebanon as well as in Europe. It typically lives about 100 years, but Gorbing said locals have kept Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree going by taking grafts and clippings from it to plant new trees when the existing one neared the end of its natural life.
