Many of the headstones at Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick were leveled during a vandalism spree discovered Jan. 6, in which 499 stones were either knocked over or destroyed. Photos by Debra Rubin
January 10, 2008
Lorraine Mraz came to Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick on Sunday, Jan. 6, to bury her father only to find her mother’s headstone, along with hundreds of others, knocked over and vandalized.
“It didn’t seem real,” said the Edison woman Jan. 7 as she gazed down at the bouquet of still fresh flowers on top of the grave of her father, Lawrence Nahama. Lying next to it was the broken headstone of her mother, Celia, who died in 1989.
Mraz was consoled by Olga Simcha Hamilton of North Brunswick, who had come to the devastated cemetery after hearing that the gravestone of her father, Menachem Simcha — a survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau — had also been pushed to the ground.
“This is my fourth time here today,” Simcha Hamilton said. “I had to keep coming back to prove to myself it really happened. Don’t these people understand the sanctity of a cemetery? To them it was just a bunch of stones with Jewish names on them.”
The women had come to the site along with many other relatives of those buried in the cemetery — located on Joyce Kilmer Avenue in back of a Foodtown supermarket off Livingston Avenue — after hearing of the incident, in which 499 gravestones were vandalized, either knocked down or smashed.
The extent of the desecration, reported at 9:35 a.m. on Jan. 6 by employees of Crabiel Parkwest Funeral Chapel, shocked the local Jewish community and drew condemnation from Jewish and civic leaders alike.
Lorraine Mraz discovered the gravestone of her mother, Celia Nahama, toppled when she came to Poile Zedek Cemetery Jan. 6 to bury her father, Lawrence. A bouquet of fresh flowers sits on Lawrence Nahama’s grave.
Representatives of synagogues and the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County scheduled a meeting for Jan. 8, after NJJN went to press, with New Brunswick police, city officials, and New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill to discuss the incident and what measures will be taken in light of the cemetery destruction.
“This desecration was an insult and affront to every community in the county, state, and country,” said Middlesex federation president Lee Livingston. “The people who did this are cowardly and despicable. We only hope they catch those responsible and they be made to pay severely and made aware that these were the kinds of acts that preceded what happened in Nazi Germany.”
The incident was the second such occurrence in days at the cemetery, operated by the 107-year-old Orthodox Congregation Poile Zedek of New Brunswick. The cemetery is also used by Sephardi Congregation Etz Ahaim of Highland Park.
On or around Jan. 1, about 20 stones were knocked over, according to Poile Zedek administrator Caryn Lipson. That vandalism was discovered Jan. 3.
Representatives of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office dust a vandalized gravestone for fingerprints at Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick on Jan. 7, after hundreds of the grave markers were found knocked over or destroyed.
“We thought it was a New Year’s prank by some kids,” she said. “We didn’t want to publicize it because we were afraid of copycat vandalism.”
However, the latest act was far from a prank as row after row of gravestones, some of which dated back to the early 1920s, were leveled. Some were cracked or broken into pieces; others were thrown into haphazard piles.
About 75 percent of all gravestones in the cemetery were affected, but the Etz Ahaim section had virtually no marker left untouched, and broken glass was strewn across some of the headstones.
“To say it was premeditated is an understatement,” said Lipson. “It had to be hours and hours of work by several people.”
New Brunswick Police Sgt. Richard Rowe said there had “never been anything close” to this amount of damage caused by any cemetery desecration in the city. Numerous detectives have been assigned to the case, he said.
The damage has not been labeled a bias crime by authorities because there was no graffiti or anti-Semitic symbols.
“It has not been classified as a bias crime at this time, but that has not been ruled out,” said Rowe. “All avenues of investigation are open but it does not appear this is a bias incident.”
Some of the headstones at Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick destroyed by vandals.
Etzion Neuer, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s NJ region, saw the situation differently, “If someone is going to target a Jewish institution — and to us a Jewish cemetery is a Jewish institution — that is certainly interpreted by the community as an attack against it. We don’t know what the motivation was, and until the perpetrators are found we are not going to know. But the Anti-Defamation League really sees the cemetery as an extension of the Jewish community.”
Rabbi Abraham Mykoff of Poile Zedek said he did not share law enforcement’s speculation that the act was simple vandalism. He recalled that when he first walked into the cemetery he felt “overwhelming disbelief” as he surveyed damage that “takes you back to the time of the Nazis.”
“This was done with hatred,” he added. “This was definitely anti-Semitic. They would not be able to do this without such hatred. They put all that manpower into this. It wasn’t a one-time prank. They came back a second time to finish the job — and they did.”
Taking inventory
On Monday, people stood in small groups commenting on the devastation while others wept and news crews milled about. Several representatives of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office were dusting gravestones for fingerprints.
Walter Friedberg of Somerset stared at a marker laying face down, which he believed to be that of his grandmother, Zelda Friedberg, who died in 1929.“It can’t be anybody with any sense of respect,” he said of the perpetrators.
Haim Baruch, chair of Etz Ahaim’s cemetery committee, walked among the damaged headstones making notations on a pad.
“First I’m taking inventory to see what’s damaged, and then we are going to try and notify relatives if we can find them,” he said. “We’ll see if they want to fix them.”
The cemetery itself “looked like a tornado” had swept through it, said 91-year-old Jack Oziel of Highland Park.
Olga Simcha Hamilton surveys the gravestone of her father, Holocaust survivor Menachem Simcha, which was knocked over and had a brown stain across it.
“It hit me really hard,” lamented the former chair of the Etz Ahaim cemetery committee, noting he knew every person buried in the Etz Ahaim section since the synagogue began using the site in 1932.
“I was there at the first burial in 1932,” said Oziel. “But what really hurt me a lot was seeing the gravestones down side by side of my parents,” Isaac and Matilda.
As Olga Simcha Hamilton knelt to touch a brown stain that had been left across her father’s headstone, she said her remembrances of him would pull her through this difficult experience.
“My father survived Auschwitz and Dachau; this would be nothing to him,” she explained. “Despite that, he was completely without animosity toward anyone or anything and was amazingly optimistic. No one got hurt here, and this can be fixed. That’s what he would say.”For those who have loved ones at the cemetery, information is available by contacting Congregation Etz Ahaim at 732-247-3839 or by contacting Caryn Lipson at Congregation Poile Zedek.
Fund established
A fund to repair damaged headstones and grounds at Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick has been established by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County.
Haim Baruch, chair of Congregation Etz Ahaim’s cemetery committee, observing the damage to gravestones in the Highland Park Sephardi synagogue’s section of Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick. Close to 500 headstones, including most in the Etz Ahaim section, were knocked down or broken by vandals.
“As we examine all avenues of effectively providing aid and comfort to those impacted and concentrate on putting together a formal plan of action, we are confident that we can count on your support during this trying time for our community,” said the federation in a prepared statement. “One hundred percent of your donation will be directed toward this fund.”
The majority of the vandalism, in which 499 gravestones were either knocked down or smashed, was discovered Jan. 6. It was the second such incident in days at the cemetery, operated by Orthodox Congregation Poile Zedek of New Brunswick and also used by Sephardi Congregation Etz Ahaim of Highland Park.
Donations should be made to the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, with “cemetery restoration fund” written in the memo line of the check, and sent to the federation at 230 Old Bridge Turnpike, South River, NJ 08882. Donations can also be made on-line.
For more information, visit the federation web site, email federation or call (732) 432-7711.