Roosevelt, NJ - Police Probe Paint-Ball Attack at Yeshiva
Roosevelt, NJ - A paint-ball attack on a dormitory for a yeshiva has not been ruled out as a religiously-motivated attack, according to the State Police.
The side of a private dwelling housing 10 to 15 students was struck by about 70 paint-ball pellets just after midnight, said Josh Pruzansky, executive vice president of Yeshiva Me'on Hatorah. "In the past, it's been verbal harassment," Pruzansky said. "This is the first physical act and hopefully the last."
State Police spokeswoman Sgt. Jeanne Hengemuhle said the incident is under investigation and witnesses are being interviewed. "We welcome any information that anyone has," Hengemuhle said.
Pruzansky said on occasion people will drive past the yeshiva and shout epithets from their vehicle windows. "The world still has many biases, and there are many prejudices," said Pruzansky, who suspects that the perpetrators behind the attack may hold those biases.
"I don't know exactly who it is," he said. "The theory is that there was a pickup truck with someone sitting in the back with the paint balls while someone was driving the pickup. It's just a theory." Pruzansky said that prior harassers have come in a pickup truck, and tire tracks found at the scene match the tracks of such a truck.
posted by VOS IZ NEIAS @ 11/23/2006 12:00:00 PM
1 Comments:
At 12:07 PM,
VOS IZ NEIAS said…
Before Congregation Anshei Roosevelt on Homestead Lane opened the high school in September 2005, public opinion in this rural, western Monmouth County was divided over whether it belonged in town.
In a vitriolic debate, opponents in the two-square-mile town of some 950 residents expressed concern that the yeshiva would change the character of the town, drain the borough's resources and remove property from the tax rolls because of its tax-exempt religious status.
Passions were so inflamed over the school that Mayor Neil Marko was recalled in a vote of 292 to 68 over his support for the yeshiva. Of 631 eligible voters, 364, or 58 percent of the electorate, took part in the recall vote.
The election was held in February, five months after the school opened with a freshman class of 12 students. This year, a sophomore class was added, and the yeshiva plans to add another grade level each year as it grows into a four-year high school.
"Regardless of one's feelings on the matter, this attack was directed against students and is an act of violence and intimidation, which has no place in New Jersey and runs counter to our state values of acceptance and respect for diversity," said in statement.
Mayor Elsbeth "Beth" Battel, who succeeded Marko, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Pruzansky explained that those borough officials and residents who oppose the yeshiva on municipal planning and zoning grounds may indirectly be inflaming and legitimizing anti-Semetic feelings elsewhere in the community with their sometimes harsh language.
"While we are not accusing anyone in the town or the leadership of the community of being involved in this incident, it would be helpful if they tone down the rhetoric," Pruzansky said.
Post a Comment
<< Home