by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

April 30, 2009

A week and a half after a small swastika was spotted on a wall at a Caldwell public school, its principal is being praised by Jewish leaders for taking quick action against an act of bigotry.

Casey Shorter, the principal of Grover Cleveland Middle School, told NJ Jewish News he and a social studies teacher discovered the drawing during a teacher training session at the lab.

“It was a little pencil drawing about the size of a quarter underneath the phone in the computer lab,” he explained. “No kids saw it — or at least no kids reported it to us. We erased it right then and there. It’s not a good thing, but it’s good that the kids didn’t have to be exposed to it.”

A few days later, when the teacher mentioned it to students during a classroom discussion on Yom Hashoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day, it set a rumor mill into action. Shorter likened the gossip to the game of “Telephone.”

“The rumors were that the school was littered with swastikas. But it was just one isolated incident. There are 620 kids in the school, and one of them did a stupid thing,” he said.

In response, the principal e-mailed a letter to Grover Cleveland parents, enlisting their “continued assistance in helping us communicate to our students that producing hateful and/or derogatory comments, images, etc. will not be tolerated.”

He wrote that the school would “continue to emphasize tolerance and acceptance of all people regardless of race, religion, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, handicap, or by any other distinguishing characteristic.”

Its staff, the letter continued, “will remain vigilant in monitoring student interactions, educating students through the district approved curriculum, and reinforcing district policy and the building discipline code.”

To Etzion Neuer, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s New Jersey region, “Context is important, and in a case like this, the school’s response is important.”

After reviewing Shorter’s letter at NJJN’s request, Neuer said, “I like it. Here is a case where the principal is addressing this head-on so that parents don’t find out about it through the newspapers and wonder why they weren’t informed. He condemns it and calls it ‘unacceptable.’”

The principal, continued Neuer, “emphasizes the importance of tolerance and reinforces the message that parents have a role in educating children. This strikes me as a strong message and a positive, healthy response from a school.”

Many of the Jewish students at the middle school attend the religious school of Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex in Caldwell. Its rabbi, Alan Silverstein, also praised Shorter’s response.

“We applaud the strong letter sent to the parent body and the commitment of the school to promote tolerance and acceptance of all types of people,” he told NJJN.

Silverstein noted that before his synagogue recently completed a lengthy renovation, Grover Cleveland “hosted our religious school beautifully and caringly for two years.”

“It is a friendly environment to the Jewish community,” he said.

Susan Werk, educational director of Agudath Israel, also praised Shorter.

“It is disturbing to hear about an anti-Semitic or bigotry incident in a community you love,” she said, after reading the principal’s letter to parents. “I thought that Shorter handled the situation beautifully.”

“I don’t know what the principal can do,” said Agudath Israel member Marcia Mickley of West Caldwell, whose 14-year-old daughter Tatiana is an eighth-grader at Grover Cleveland. “It would be great if he could find the person who did it and use him as an example of unacceptable behavior. I don’t have an answer to what he should do.”

“I feel none of us likes to be confronted with blatant anti-Semitism, and it’s always shocking when that happens. I never know how to handle it,” Mickley said.

The synagogue will present a program on May 20 at 7 p.m. to instruct middle-school students and their parents on coping with incidents of anti-Semitism.

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