Gravestones in B’klyn fell on their own

A MANHATTAN philanthropy is raising $1 million to fund programs for New Yorkers under siege from President Trump’s new policies.

From legal assistance to racial justice training, the benefactors behind the new Liberty Fund are taking a front-line position in the battle to preserve civil rights and basic freedoms.

With a new travel ban under review that would target people from majority Muslim countries — and a new immigration policy that could spell doom for undocumented settlers from coast to coast — organizers of the fund reasoned that they had to do something more than just craft clever signs and protest.

“I think we have seen a change in the way nonprofits have to respond to the new challenges coming out of Washington,” said Lorie Slutsky, president of New York Community Trust, which is dividing the $1 million Liberty Fund grants among organizations across the five boroughs.

“The Liberty Fund, for us, was an attempt not to be anti-Trump or pro-Trump, but to provide help for institutions and organizations that are struggling, and to say, ‘We’re here and we’re going to give you money to help you stay focused.’ ”

Slutsky said 21 groups across the city are getting “rapid response” grants from the new fund, including a group that provides know-your-rights workshops to African immigrants and another that is trying to organize Latino immigrant day laborers in Staten Island.

Among the groups receiving a grant is the Jackson Heights, Queens-based Chhaya Community Development Corp., which is getting $50,000 to expand its legal clinics for South Asian immigrants, and train community members to help residents report crimes.

“We started to hear from our members the fears they were having around the election,” said Chhaya’s Executive Director, Annetta Seecharran.

“No one really thought this was going to come to pass, but there were some hate crimes leading up to the election, and after the election there was a groundswell of people coming to our office. They were afraid for what this meant to their status in this country.

“They needed to hear from each other so they know they’re not alone,” Seecharran added. “They needed to know we have their backs.”

In the months since Trump’s election, there has been a rash of hate crimes across New York City and other parts of the country. Trump’s travel ban was put on hold by a federal appeals court last month, but not before it snared a number of local residents making their way back home.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has issued expansive deportation policies labeling any undocumented immigrant who is charged with any crime or violation of law, regardless of its severity, a priority for deportation.

That’s where the Liberty Fund comes in.

Slutsky knows $1 million isn’t enough to cure all the ills of the new administration’s policies.

“The honest answer is that $10 million isn’t enough, either,” Slutsky said. “Sometimes you can’t stop all bad things. The goal is to provide rapid response. We want to address these changes from a place of strength and preparedness.” POLICE AND the general manager of a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn said that 42 fallen headstones were not caused by vandals, explaining Sunday that the memorials had naturally tipped over due to age — though some elected officials were calling for an investigation, anyway.

“It definitely was not vandalism,” Marisa Tarantino, general manager of the Washington Cemetery on Bay Parkway in Midwood, told reporters.

“The older sections, as the stones wear, they do fall over or are unstable,” she continued. “What we do is we lay them across the grave to keep them memorialized rather than taking (them) away.” A police spokesman agreed. “There’s no evidence of vandalism,” the spokesman said. “It appears to be a result of neglect of maintenance combined with environmental factors, such as the soil giving way.”

But later Sunday, officials — including Assemblyman Dov Hikind, city Controller Scott Stringer and city Councilman David Greenfield — stood outside the 100-acre property, demanding an investigation.

“There are many tombstones that clearly have been pushed over, clearly vandalized,” Hikind said.

“We are not talking about tombstones that are naturally lying down. There are some of those. All you’ve got to do is walk in there and see that something is just not right.”