Parsippany residents outraged by ball field swastika

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

A 10-foot-wide swastika burned into the grass of an athletic practice field behind Parsippany High School before the winter holiday vacation has left faculty members and Jewish community activists debating how severely the three students responsible ought to be punished.

“A case like this is absolutely a bias crime, and I think it should be treated as such,” said Etzion Neuer, the NJ regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.

“There is probably a certain amount of prosecutorial discretion here, but it should be treated severely. The swastika is meant to shock. It is laden with anti-Semitic imagery. It cannot be wrenched away from its history of hate.”

The giant Nazi symbol was etched into the lawn in late November or early December, then promptly covered with snow until Dec. 23 — the last day the school was in session prior to its holiday vacation. Although three members of the senior class confessed promptly after showing schoolmates digital photographs of their handiwork, most teachers were unaware of the incident until after they returned to class in January.

The two 18-year-olds and one 17-year-old, all boys, were suspended for five days. They lost school parking privileges for two months and will be barred from attending their senior class banquet. In addition, they will be required to attend sensitivity sessions with Holocaust survivors and were put on notice that further wrongdoing could prevent them from taking part in their graduation ceremonies and the senior prom. School officials have refused to reveal their identities.

The Morris County prosecutor’s office has not yet decided whether to charge them with a bias crime.

“I don’t think the punishment was harsh enough, but that’s not my place to determine,” said John Capsouras, chair of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Educational Association, the labor union representing the teachers.

Capsouras said he was “staggered” by the incident. “My mother worked for a dentist who had Holocaust survivors among his patients. Their stories have been emblazoned in my head since I was a child. I am not Jewish, but that doesn’t matter.”

As a labor leader, Capsouras said, he received complaints about the level of punishment from fellow teachers, then conveyed their sentiments to school board officials, who “didn’t feel the same concern. They felt that because they were having educational activities attached to this [punishment] it was sufficient.”

A teacher at the high school who requested not to be identified also felt the students had gotten off lightly. “I’m Jewish and I’m outraged,” the teacher told NJ Jewish News. “These punks are getting off with a slap on the wrist. They deserve to be arrested and tried for a bias crime. They have already taken Holocaust education and they read Night” — survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir — “in their English class. So instead of any real punishment, they’ll get a little remedial education and if they’re good boys for the rest of the semester, they’ll be allowed to go to the prom.”

David Glass, who teaches history at the high school and serves as youth director at the Pine Brook Jewish Center, said he and other faculty members first heard of the desecration on Jan. 2, their first day back in class after the winter break, when they spotted the names of three suspended students on an attendance sheet.

“We got word that three boys were suspended and that’s all we knew,” he said. “There was no explanation of why. That’s normal. But in a school, it is very easy to get information from kids. There are 1,000 kids in the school.”

Glass declined to make recommendations for how severely the three seniors should be disciplined but said he was “appalled” by news of the incident.

“When I see a swastika, it tells me there are people out there with the idea that Hitler’s work was not done and it’s not just Hitler’s work. It’s ‘Why don’t we just drag a gay person through the street?’ or ‘Why don’t we go to Darfur and kill people of an ethnic and political minority?’ It’s not just about Hitler. It’s about African Americans. It’s about all of us. It’s about hate.”

“Maybe these kids should have learned more in their Holocaust education classes,” said Barbara Wind, director of the Holocaust Council of MetroWest. “But just because you have math in school does not mean you really learn it. In some ways, it is either our failure to teach it well or their failure to really learn it.”

Yet, Wind said, “I don’t think these kids need to do jail time, because our jails are not working the way they should. But they need to do more time learning what they should have learned. We have to attempt to teach it to them, because the alternative is that they will turn into neo-Nazis or maybe join the militias — the kind of organizations that were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.

“There was a reason they did this. I don’t know what the reason is and maybe they don’t know what the reason is. But for us not to address it would be foolish.”

Lori Price Abrams, director of the Community Relations Committee of UJC MetroWest NJ and a graduate of Parsippany High, said the incident “must be handled in the most serious of terms. It can’t be seen as a youthful prank. They need a re-education program so they have a broader understanding of what the implications of this symbol are and the pain it evokes because of the utter brutality it represents.”

Alana Cooper, the ADL associate regional director assigned by Neuer to handle the case, told NJJN she hopes “this will be a life-changing experience” for the three student offenders.

“I think it’s important that the community take it seriously, the school take it seriously, and that it is not a matter to make jokes about. This is a really teachable moment in the community.”

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com

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