Monticello, NY - Rebuilding a Community Hurt by Hate

Monticello, NY - A year ago, local teenagers sprayed hateful graffiti on synagogue walls and defaced pictures of rabbis at the White Rock bungalow colony. They had painted swastikas on a cooler, on a table. They scrawled Hitler's name in lurid yellow across a cooler door.

A year later, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, the White Rock bungalow colony is renewed.
Kids from the colony planted new shrubs at the entry. They created a rock garden and painted some of the rocks white. They put in a new play area. They planted flowers. They picked up trash along Southwoods Drive near the colony.
"Just to add some color and make things look pretty," said Shoshana Mermelstein, White Rock's owner. "And of course, we had a lot of painting and repair to do." "The kids joined together, and they planted, and they did a beautiful rock garden," she said. "Definitely, it should serve as a peace garden. Everybody should just be happy together as neighbors."