Love and hate in Bergen County
Beth El website raises funds, awareness for security
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PrintIn the wake of last week’s attack on a Rutherford synagogue, social media is helping create a new sense of security there.
Adam Wolf, a West Orange marketing consultant, grew up in Rutherford and his parents live two blocks from Temple Beth El, the site of last week’s firebombing. When he heard about the attack, Wolf wanted to do something to help, and the result has been a viral campaign through e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter to raise money for the shul’s security upgrades.
“This is still my shul,” Wolf told The Jewish Standard Tuesday. “It was obvious we needed a new security system.”
Wolf spoke with some of his friends in the security field who gave him a rough estimate of $3,500 to upgrade the shul’s security system. He then turned to the synagogue with an idea to create a website to raise the money. By Friday afternoon, just before Shabbat, the site went live. As of Tuesday, more than $1,800 had been collected from donors, some as far away as Houston, Texas.
“They were kind of surprised when I told them we got donations from Houston and gotten donations from people who weren’t Jewish but love the town,” Wolf said. “Any amount is great, but people have donated as much as $100 and I think people are a little amazed by that.”
For Rabbi Nosson Schuman, who lives in the synagogue with his wife and five children, the response has been “very touching.”
“In general, throughout the whole New Jersey region, we’ve gotten a lot of sympathy and received checks from people we’ve never met before,” the rabbi said, noting people who moved away from Rutherford years ago are donating. “Somehow, we’ve made an impact on their lives and they’re giving back to us. It’s a very beautiful thing.”
Having reached half of its goal in only a few days, synagogue leaders hope to begin security upgrades as early as next week. They plan to install motion-sensor lighting and surveillance cameras to complement the existing alarm system.
“It’s not just a contribution to a cause, it’s a contribution to a family feeling secure and we greatly appreciate that,” Schuman said. “Everyone understands that this was not just a personal attack; this was an attack on the Jewish people.”
Schuman and his family remain in the house, adding a sense of urgency to the security upgrades.
For more information on Beth El’s security campaign or to make a tax-deductible donation, visit www.donatebethel.com.
More on: Love and hate in Bergen County
Police: Graffiti in Fair Lawn, Glen Rock ‘isolated incidents’
As police continue to investigate an escalating series of attacks on area synagogues, which reached new urgency following last week’s firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue, they are also addressing a recent string of anti-Semitic graffiti incidents in area parks. They do not see a link between the two, however.
The Fair Lawn Police Department responded Friday, Jan. 13, to a call about graffiti in Beaver Dam Park, where an employee earlier that morning discovered three swastikas and an anarchy symbol spray-painted on a basketball court and shed. On Jan. 1, the Bergen County Police Department (BCPD) responded to a call in the Fair Lawn section of Dunkerhook County Park where three swastikas were discovered inside a Porta-John. Later that day, the police department received a second call about two swastikas and hateful slogans discovered on a storm drain in the Glen Rock section of Dunkerhook.
Synagogues take control of their own security
Neighborhood watch organizations are nothing new, but a group of security professionals five years ago decided to localize the idea even more by creating Community Security Service, a volunteer organization that trains members of Jewish organizations in vigilance.
“Law enforcement can’t do everything on their own and we have the ability to help them,” said Joshua Glice, CSS’s director of synagogue and school operations . “It’s very important that the community try to help. Nobody will know the members of a congregation as well as the congregants themselves.”
An interview with Rabbi Nosson Schuman
A few minutes of hate give way to many days of love and support
On Monday, Rabbi Nosson Schuman went shopping with his wife to buy new sheets to replace the ones scorched by a Molotov cocktail thrown through their bedroom window just before dawn on Jan. 11.
That night, he had planned to kick off a new adult-ed class on prayer in Congregation Beth El of Rutherford, the small synagogue that shares the house where he and his family have lived since August 2009. Instead, the congregants gathered to discuss the incident, which police are still puzzling over.
Communal meeting, interfaith gathering follow in Rutherford bombing’s wake
With the Jewish communities of Bergen County on heightened alert, some 200 religious and community leaders gathered on Jan. 12 to discuss the recent string of anti-Semitic incidents in the county with law enforcement and government officials.
The meeting followed by one day the most recent, and most serious, attack — a firebombing that could have claimed the lives of eight people. The incident targeted the old Queen Anne building in Rutherford that houses Orthodox Congregation Beth El, as well as the home of its rabbi and his family. Five of the eight potential victims were children.
