Westlawn Cemetery

Westlawn Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located in Norridge, Illinois. Notable persons buried there include Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald; film critic Gene Siskel; Abe Saperstein, creator of the Savoy Big Five, which later became the Harlem Globetrotters; Shel Silverstein (next to his parents), creative author and cartoonist who created "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "The Giving Tree," and Evelyn Wakely.

The cemetery covers 72 acres and roughly 46,000 people are buried there.

Westlawn was the site of gravestone desecration in January 2008. At least 57 tombstones were defaced with anti-Semitic slogans. Using white and blue spray paint, the vandal drew swastikas and slurs on tombstones in a western section of the cemetery. A 21 year old Polish immigrant male (name deliberately omitted) was charged with the crime in February 2008. If convicted of institutional vandalism, the alleged perpetrator faces up to 7 years in prison. He has been directly linked by police to a neo-Nazi organization in the Chicago area.

External links

* [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=41+57+28N+87+49+38W&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr Google Maps view of the cemetery]