No additional jail time for cemetery vandals
By Lauren Matthew
March 28, 2008
The minors responsible for desecrating the Poile Zedek cemetery in
"I'm very disappointed," said Rabbi David Bassous of Congregation Etz Ahaim,
The four previously pleaded guilty to charges of criminal mischief, desecration, conspiracy, and trespassing.
The boys, whose ages range from 15 to 17, were sentenced March 17 in a closed juvenile court hearing, but as crime victims, local synagogue and community members were allowed to attend. Superior Court Judge Jane Cantor released the boys, saying they had already served 68 days in juvenile detention and were not required to serve more.
"I don't think that anybody I have spoken to felt that it was a fitting sentence, whether they were Jewish or non-Jewish," said Rabbi Avroham Mykoff of Congregation Poile Zedek of
Their probation period will last 18 months, according to Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Ralph Cretella, and each boy was sentenced to 100 hours community service. Additionally, the boys are required to attend school regularly -- something several observers said they were not doing prior to the vandalism -- and write letters of apology to members of Etz Ahaim and Poile Zedek.
Mykoff said he was unsure if the boys' community service will include helping with repairs to the cemetery.
Cretella told The Jewish State that two of the four boys were ordered to pay $5,000 in reparations; the other three were each ordered to pay $2,500 a piece. One of the boys ordered to pay $2,500, he said, was only involved in one night of the vandalism.
The fines, Bassous said, are inadequate for the damage done. The boys caused an estimated $200,000 worth of damage.
Mykoff agreed, calling the fines "symbolic restitution." "Even that is questionable," he said.
Prior to the hearing,
A probation officer will monitor the boys and be sure that they attend school and their class, as well as pay their reparations, according to Cretella.
New Brunswick
Extensive repairs
under way
The boys live within walking distance of the cemetery, officials said, and climbed the walls of the cemetery in January to upend headstones. It is estimated that knocking over the 499 disturbed stones took up to four hours.
Three of the boys knocked down 17 tombstones on New Year's Day, officials said, but returned three days later with a fourth friend to finish their work.
Etz Ahaim's March shul bulletin noted that the re-setting of turned over tombstones at the cemetery had begun as of March 3. Once that work is completed, the replacement of broken stones will begin.
"Thank God, most of it is already back. We have two phases -- first was resetting the majority of the stones that had been toppled, but not damaged. That has been done," Mykoff told The Jewish State. "Most of the cemetery is back almost as before."
Re-setting, Mykoff said, was done by American Memorial Erectors, and was finished about a week ago.
"The second phase is to replace stones that have been broken, and that's the phase that we are now entering," he continued.
A memorial service will be scheduled once the cemetery restoration is completed, according to the Etz Ahaim bulletin, and a letter will be sent to each family whose stones are affected, outline the details of the complete project.
The cost of replacing the destroyed headstones is hefty, and some families have to replace more than one. Etz Ahaim's Web site, www.etzahaim.org, contains a link for donations to go toward the rebuilding of the cemetery (click "store" on the menu at left, and "charitable funds"). Donations start at $1.
Boredom, not hate
Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan has said that the vandalism was the result of alcohol and boredom, not anti-Semitism. The incident was not considered a bias crime, a decision that touched off a public debate on such classification and was criticized on the editorial pages of some local newspapers, including that of The Jewish State.
According to the Anti-Defamation League's recently released statistics on anti-Semitic incidents in N.J. in 2007, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in
The maximum sentence the boys faced, officials said, was one year of imprisonment for each count of conspiracy and desecration and two years for each count of criminal mischief. Three of the teens faced two counts of each charge, and the fourth faced single counts.
Personal pleas from
the victims
For weeks prior to the hearing, Etz Ahaim had a notice posted on the front door, on eye level. The piece of paper was a plea for members to write to the court and explain how the desecration affected them.
Many of the notes to the court, members told The Jewish State, asked for the maximum sentence allowable.
"We wrote letters, but it didn't work," said Etz Ahaim member Charlotte Benzilio. "[The sentencing] was like a slap on the wrist. It should have been a little bit stronger. That's all I can say."
According to Cretella, Cantor told the courtroom that she did read the letters before deciding on the appropriate sentencing.
"The judge said she was obviously sympathetic to the letters that she received, and she probably received between 80 and 100 letters," Cretella said. "And she said she did read them all, that she was sympathetic to their concerns and views."
Synagogue members who attended the hearing said they, and many others, wanted the maximum penalty for the teens. And, they said, watching the proceedings, watching the boys in the context of the courtroom was difficult to take. When they received their sentences, they were relieved and smiling.
But members of the community were not.
"It wasn't fair," said Etz Ahaim member Jack Oziel. "I was shocked because I think I buried everybody there. I'm 92 years old. It hurt me when I saw all that, very badly."
Oziel, who attended the sentencing, said the ruling was very lenient, and that the teenagers seemed to be benefiting from their time in juvenile custody. It may have been to their advantage to stay there, he said; they were going to classes and doing well, according to officials. Oziel said he worries that the probation officers assigned to the boys will not watch them carefully enough, and their education will suffer as a result.
"I heard them talk when the judge was interviewing them... it isn't that they may do that again, but they're not going to be educated," he said.
The probation officers, Oziel said, should "be on their backs" to make sure they do everything set down in the sentence.
'The message did not go through'
Oziel was not the only one who said the boys would benefit from more time served.
"Unfortunately, I think that there should have been a period of incarceration, not as revenge or punishment, more so that the juveniles need direction," Mykoff said. "I believe that the juvenile program would give them an added lesson in terms of their future life."
While admitting that the community as a whole was very emotionally involved and therefore not capable of objectivity, Etz Ahaim member Fred Weissman said that the court simply was not listening.
"There should have been a message there," he said. "And the message did not go through."
Weissman said the desecration made him think of the actions of the Nazis -- destroying Jewish cemeteries and using the headstones to pave roads.
"One of the first things the Nazis did," he said, "was desecrate graveyards."
Weissman spoke at the hearing, and he visited the cemetery in January. His family is among those with ruined headstones.
"When they saw what was there [in January], the intensity, and the fear and the horror... my statement [at the hearing] was that people could say that the Nazis were coming back. People could say that's not possible. I learned long ago that anything is possible," he said.
Talking about the destruction of the cemetery, Weissman used the word "atrocity" -- and he drew attention to the fact that he chose it, too. The implication, the full weight of the word, he said, had to be behind something like this. And while Cantor told all at the hearing that the intent of juvenile court is not to punish, Weissman, like many others, said more should have been done. Schools in
"The punishment should fit the crime a little better than it did," Weissman said. "There's got to be more. There should've been more."
Bassous, who spoke at the hearing, said that if it were only a few headstones, the actions would not merit a stronger sentence. But, he said, 499 headstones is very difficult to write off -- even if that upending was done by inebriated teenagers.
"It's very upsetting that they can appeal a sentence, but we can't," Bassous said.
Those with family in the cemetery said the ruling does not dull the pain. Months later, the impact of the desecration is still immediate.
"When I got there at the cemetery [in January] and I saw my parents' stones shattered, it hurt me," Oziel said. "And I knew all these people, personally. It's a big hurt."
Seth Mandel contributed to this report.