Some 1,000 people, including Governor Thomas Kean, participated in an interfaith rally and demonstration of solidarity yesterday that concluded with clean up operations at a synagogue defaced last month with anti-Semitic slogans and damaged when a tractor was driven through the building’s side.
Three youths have been arrested for the anti-Semitic attack on Beth Shalom Synagogue here, whose spiritual leader, Rabbi Ira Rothstein, was instrumental in organizing the rally. The synagogue had been open for about one month when the youths allegedly desecrated the exterior walls with swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti and drove a tractor used for landscaping the synagogue grounds through a side of the structure, leaving a gaping hole.
“Eighteen days ago, we saw the face of ignorance, intolerance and anti-Semitism,” Rothstein told the rally that assembled in a football field before walking to the synagogue. “To those individuals, I say ‘Stand here on this platform and look out on this sea of faces and feel the good will, compassion and support which just emanates from everyone’.”
“I hope that when we leave this field, we don’t forget,” said Rev. Robert Wozniak of St. Robert Bellarmine Roman Catholic Church here. “We don’t forget that we can’t wish prejudice away. We can’t pray it away. It will only go away when we work at it.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
