Health & Fitness
Night of Healing Scheduled for Feb. 1
Follow-up on anti-Semitic acts in Bergen County.
In spite of the arrest of one individual in the recent descecrations of local synagogues from Maywood, to Hackensack, to Rutherford, we must remain united, regardless of faith or ethnicity, to condemn acts of violence and hatred in our midst, says Anthony Cureton, President of the Bergen County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The NAACP, the Jewish Community Relations Council, members of the Bergen County Brotherhood/Sisterhood, will join in a “Night of Healing” Wednesday. Bergen County residents of all faiths and ethnicities are invited to attend the program scheduled for 7 p.m. on Feb. 1 on the steps of the Bergen County Courthouse on Court Street in Hackensack.
As reported in Patch, a series of incidents, once a week, since mid-December, occurred at local Jewish houses of worship, ranging from anti-Semitic graffiti to firebombs. Bergen County Prosecutor's office investigators surveyed video footage of a man at the check-out line of a Walmart store. Follow-up investigation led to the arrest last Wednesday of Anthony Graziano, 19. Graziano pled not-guilty.
Find out what's happening in Fort Leefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Upon hearing of the arrest, Laurence Goldberg, a lifelong Fort Lee resident and former council member, as well as officer of the New Synagogue and of the former Fort Lee Community Center, said, "On one hand it is gratifying to know that within the United States, when a crime against a person, any person, or a group of persons, any group, is committed, the alleged perpetrators can be identified, apprehended and brought to justice quickly ... On the other hand, to me, it is very disheartening not only that these crimes took place, but also that the perpetrator of these crimes appears not to be a hardcore criminal, but an 18-year-old Bergen County resident, a little older then a youth. Regardless of what his personal circumstances might be, I have to wonder what makes an 18-year-old young man that has so much to live for have so much hate inside him to commit such hideous alleged crimes."
