Snow Tease
…and then it all turned to rain.
Highland Park
Photos by Mason
I discovered a photo blog of a local friend, Mason Resnick. So for some fun, I am linking to some of his posts with Highland Parkers. I found one of my friends in two different photos.
He told me that this is one of his favorite posts: Uh, Mr. Adams You Can’t Take Pictures Here.
Mason likes getting comments, so be sure to leave a comment on his blog. Tell him we want more local pics!
Learning from Cemetery Desecration
Rabbi Bassous devoted his speech this past Shabbat to learning from the cemetery vandalism in New Brunswick. I missed the speech (my daughter had other plans for me), so I apologize in advance to Rabbi Bassous if I botch my summary of what he said. My husband related to me that he spoke about two topics:
1) Even when you are dead, you may still not be at rest. Vandals can still attack your grave.
2) It is important to raise children from an early age to respect property. This can start with teaching children to pick up a candy wrapper from the floor. Unfortunately, the teens involved in this incident were not raised to respect property.
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My husband pointed out that if the teens were tried in a Jewish Halachic court, they would be considered adults. In the American judicial system, they are considered juveniles.
In my searches on the web, I discovered that cemetery desecration is all too common a pastime for some teens. Clearly, there are a lot of parents out there NOT teaching their children to respect property, especially buried dead people. On one forum, I found young men bragging about their exploits, and saying the only reason why this is getting such publicity is because it is a Jewish cemetery. Sad. And scary.
Cemetery Desecration Update
Newswire update:
New Brunswick, NJ – Four teenagers have been arrested in connection with the damage done to nearly 500 headstones at the Jewish cemetery, a rabbi from one of the two synagogues that uses the cemetery said.
Received through a synagogue email:
The Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County stands with the community in expressing shock and sadness at the desecration and vandalism at the Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick.
Federation has teamed with Congregation Poile Zedek, Congregation Etz Ahaim, Rabbis, cemetery officials and the organized Jewish community to assess the damage and provide the support necessary to begin to heal and rebuild. We have approached law enforcement officials, the Mayor of New Brunswick, and the county prosecutor’s office in an effort to maintain open lines of communication. Federation, representing a united Jewish community, is in pursuit of a full-scale, rigorous investigation into this heinous crime, which is an affront to us all.
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. In that vein, we have established a fund for the repair and restoration of the cemetery. Donations can be sent to the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, earmarked “Cemetery Restoration Fund”. 100% of your donation will be directed toward this fund. Our address is 230 Old Bridge Turnpike, South River, NJ 08882. If you need more information, contact us at 732-432-7711 or [email protected]. You may also donate on line by logging onto our website at JewishMiddlesex.org.
Cemetery Vandalized
Headline: Vandals tip tombstones, trash graves
Are we in Eastern Europe? The former Soviet Union? No, no, this took place right here in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Nathan Reiss of Congregation Etz Ahaim said Sunday’s vandalism at the Poile Zedek Cemetery came days after a similar incident was discovered on Thursday. Families of the buried will have to pay for all this damage. Many of these families are descendants of immigrants from Salonika and Turkey, hard-working people who became model American citizens. Read more about some of the families in Voices of Etz Ahaim. Others are Holocaust survivors, such as Menachem Simcha.
My husband said it will cost $200 and up just to repair one headstone. Some are not repairable. 499 headstones toppled.
Finally, the police is now calling this a bias crime. See the comments on Dov Bear.
“To say it was premeditated is an understatement,” said Poile Zedek administrator Caryn Lipson. “It had to be hours and hours of work by several people.”
From the Star Ledger:
Jack Oziel picked his way through the ruins of the vandalized Jewish cemetery yesterday, surveying hundreds of headstones toppled like dominos or lying in crumbled heaps.
He managed to locate the fragments of a granite Star of David that had marked his father’s grave lying on the grass. His mother’s tomb had cracked in half. And everywhere else Oziel looked, he saw more headstones of family and friends knocked down.
“I knew them all. I buried all these people. Now they are all in pieces,” Oziel, 91, said with red eyes as he surveyed the damage at the Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick.
And I know Jack Oziel. So I feel like I know all of those people buried there, too.
How can this be prevented? A surveillance camera? And who would do something so nasty?
Cyber Knight to the Rescue
Last week I had a pleasant experience with a local techie. I had some problems with my laptop, and not only did Mike Beberman of Cyber Knights in New Brunswick fix the problem, he also performed diagnostics on my laptop. And he and I chatted about our mutual sadness at the demise of the local ‘Y’ and our favorite New Jersey kosher restaurants, neither which are located in Highland Park (Lin’s Chinese of Manville, New Jersey and Mosaica in or near Union, New Jersey).
He told me he would like to be known as the guy you call for computer problems, just like you might have one guy who fixes your car.
So if you live in Central New Jersey and have a computer problem, try Cyber Knights at:
(732) 227-0932
Vaera: Frog Song
One morning when Paro awoke in his bed
There were frogs in his bed, and frogs on his head
Frogs on his nose and frogs on his toes
Frogs here, frogs there
Frogs were jumping everywhere.
Listen to my daughter singing the song …
(Frog is drawn by me…a quick sketch with the pencil, then scanned into the computer and the greens were added in Photoshop.)
This post is dedicated to my dear friend Heidi Rosen and her mom, z”l (may her memory be a blessing). Hamakom yinachem otah b’toh avlai Zion v’Yerushalayim…
Heidi’s mom died after a long battle with cancer. This is also for all dear moms and daughters everywhere.
Earth-Friendly Food in a friendly store
Lori at Lori’s Earth Friendly Products has been hard at work redesigning her home page. Who says the mom and pop store is gone? Sometimes you just have to know where to look. Lori is a local Highland Park resident who has been selling juice with fiber for kids and other kosher, healthy products from her internet website for many years (and that’s just her part-time job!).
Bought some coffee last week from Lori’s, and I’ve been enjoying every drop of the fresh coffee I’ve made with it.
Upgrade, categories, tour of Highland Park
Did my first WordPress upgrade this morning. It went without a hitch (yippee!).
Contemplated getting rid of most of the categories for blog links and sticking the majority under “More Blogs”, with Highland Park Blogs still existing. Decided to leave as is for now. Hint: two of the bloggers under “Jewish Blogs” are also Highland Park residents, but they don’t blog much about our borough.
I plan to post a text-based virtual walking tour of Highland Park soon. Meanwhile, be sure to visit the environmental virtual tour. I started redoing that start page of the tour in Flash, but I was two-thirds of the way done and got interrupted by my paid work. When I finally had time to get back to it, Actionscript 2 had been replaced as the standard by Actionscript 3. So I haven’t had the energy to get back to that project yet.
Arnold Clayton Henderson, the wonderful writer of Highland Park Environmental News has been away, but I did find out that Edison’s Triple C Ranch is holding their annual CBC today. Birding is popular in this area!
Voices of Etz Ahaim
Attention local history buffs! Here’s a book you won’t want to miss:
Voices of Etz Ahaim. Nathan Reiss and Seth Rubenstein paired up to create a wonderful collection of biographies of many of the diverse congregants of Congregation Etz Ahaim, a Sephardi Orthodox synagogue in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Learn about how Rabbi David Bassous was born in India, grew up in London, became a rabbi in Israel, had his first pulpit in Vancouver, and then came to Highland Park. Liselle (Elisheva) Badache grew up in war-torn Algeria. Behzad Hakakian, brother of Roya Hakakian, speaks of growing up Jewish in Iran. One of the oldest members of Etz Ahaim, Al Benzilio, whose parents were from Salonika, reports on the original building in New Brunswick, and how the synagogue was named after one in Salonika.
Pictures enhance each of the biographies. Twenty two people of varying ages and backgrounds were interviewed for the book.
The book was available via the Etz Ahaim website, etzahaim.org; you can probably contact the webmaster to see if you can still get a copy. There is one copy in the reference section of the Highland Park Public Library.
