Rabbi Jeremy Masters addresses the candlelight vigil held in Hightstown Jan. 31 to protest graffiti — including swastikas and anti-homosexual slurs — scrawled on public monuments in Hightstown, East Windsor, and Roosevelt.
Photo courtesy the Trenton Times
February 05, 2008
Princeton-area residents rallied in Hightstown Jan. 31 to protest a series of vandalism incidents that included slurs against Jews and homosexuals.
Some 100 people gathered in front of one crime scene, the swastika-inscribed fountain on South Main and Mercer streets in Hightstown.
Their outrage was triggered by swastikas, obscenities, anti-homosexual slurs, and political commentary scrawled on public monuments in Roosevelt, Hightstown, and East Windsor Jan. 9.
The vandals spray-painted another swastika and some obscenities on a street sign and a guardrail in East Windsor.
Among the rally-goers “there were people with yarmulkes and beards, there were clerical collars and priestly robes, and there were young and old,” said Andrew Frank, executive director of the United Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks.
“We stood in this cold, cold weather to express dismay and disgust. The sense that you can’t remain silent was prevalent. There was a sense of anger and a sense of hope.”
The vigil was organized by Sandra Johnson, a retired librarian from Hightstown. “I was really stunned and shocked,” said Johnson. “My reaction was not anger so much as disappointment and sadness that someone would do this.”
The vandalism was most extensive in Roosevelt, a town founded by Jews in 1937 as an experiment in collective farming and manufacturing and dedicated to Franklin Roosevelt after his death in 1945.
On the pedestal of a bust of FDR, vandals painted a hammer and sickle, the “F-word” accompanying a star of David, and what appeared to be a swastika repainted as crossed lines inside a square box.
Other writings included the word “gay,” a comment that Roosevelt “didn’t fix the great depression,” and an expletive condemning “GWB” — presumably President George W. Bush.
A possible connection among the three incidents “is certainly being explored,” Lieutenant James Brady of the East Windsor Police Department told NJ Jewish News. “The case is being investigated by all three jurisdictions working in conjunction with each other.”
Etzion Neuer, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s New Jersey region, called the incidents “reminders about the terrible persistence of hate.”
“The Roosevelt graffiti is a little unusual. It was all over the place,” he said. “There may be those in the Jewish community who might take solace in the fact that the invective is directed at many targets. But any time we see this type of hate directed against any group, we are concerned and we have to denounce it. There is anti-Semitism here. There is homophobia here.”
Although no arrests have been made, Neuer said he believes “the police departments took these incidents very seriously and spent a lot of time working on them.”
He said the police are investigating paint samples and are canvassing stores that sell spray paint.
A foot-tall swastika on the fountain at The Point in Hightstown
“I think it is an isolated incident by an angry person or small group of people and certainly does not represent what the community really feels,” said Rabbi Jeremy Masters of Congregation Beth Chaim in Princeton Junction. “I really don’t think it is anything to be greatly concerned about, although it is a good thing the citizens in the area are speaking up about it.”
The Rev. David Spiegel of the Fellowship Baptist Church in West Windsor said the attacks have triggered an outpouring of angry phone and e-mail conversations among local clergy of all faiths.
“There is significant strength in the religious community — the synagogues, the churches, the mosques,” he said. “We won’t stand for this kind of thing.”
Spiegel said he had a strong personal revulsion to the attacks.
“My father was born and raised Jewish and spoke very strongly to us as children about anti-Semitism,” said the minister. “He spoke very clearly about how anti-Semitism wasn’t just destructive to the Jewish community but to the entire community.
“My father had been in World War II, and he toured the concentration camps. He saw the swastikas and the Nazi stuff up close and personal, and he knows how devastating it is.”