Raritan Ave. vandalism targeted Jewish businesses

Hours after five Raritan Avenue businesses were vandalized in the pre-dawn hours yesterday, prosecutors announced that a New Brunswick man was charged with criminal mischief in the incident.

Because the attacks targeted five Jewish-owned businesses – Jack’s Hardware, Trio Gifts, Judaica Gallery, Park Place restaurant, and Jerusalem Pizza – the prosecutor’s office referred to the crimes as “an apparent bias related incident.”

Prosecutors said they will decide after further investigation whether to upgrade the criminal mischief charges, a fourth-degree misdemeanor, to a bias crime. Other than the smashed windows, no other damage, graffiti, or theft was discovered, and no injuries were reported.

The ongoing investigation also seeks to determine if the suspect, Richard M. Green, 52, of Bayard Street in New Brunswick, is responsible for other acts of criminal mischief that have occurred in the past several days. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, vandalism was reported at the building of Rutgers Hillel and Chabad in New Brunswick.

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement condemning the incidents in New Brunswick and in Highland Park. “These shocking crimes target the entire Jewish community as these locations appear to have been selected because of their Jewishness,” said Lawrence Cooper, ADL New Jersey Regional Board Chair."

The community reacts

Highland Park merchants and community members reacted with a mix of worry and resolve. “You always have to just laugh,” says Avi Reiss, the owner of Trio Gifts, which has been on Raritan Avenue for over eight years. "It's just a broken window."

"The problem isn’t the window, the problem is the people who did this. But this is a very nice quiet town in general; everyone gets along just fine. This incident is totally out of character for this town.”

Paul Goldman, owner of the Park Place restaurant, added, “In four years of owning this restaurant, nothing like this has ever happened,” he said. “But obviously we’re looking at some kind of bias crime.”

Others expressed concern and fear in the wake of the crime. Vanessa Shimoni, who works at the Judaica Gallery owned by her husband, said, “I’m not angry. It’s more painful and worrisome. There’s a part of me that hopes this was just a crazy person. But in Germany, what were people thinking there . . . that it was just a crazy person?"

"I have a 6 year old child in public school who wears his kippah and has tzitzit hanging out – he’s obviously Jewish. Do I need to worry about that?”

A passerby added that the incident reminded him of similar incidents of vandalism during his childhood in Livingston, New Jersey. “This town is like a magnet for people that hate,” the man commented. He withheld his name due to fear of reprisals from “skinheads and white supremacists. They’re very active in Woodbridge and Edison,” he said.

Rabbi Yaakov Luban of the Edison and Highland Park Congregation Ohr Torah said, “Obviously, the targeting of a series of Jewish stores is a matter of grave concern, but until the perpetrator’s motive is understood, it is premature to formulate any conclusions.”

“I hope the message gets out that the community is ready to help as needed," said another shopowner, Jenni Chapman. "I'm bothered that there has been so much talk about Highland Park being a town where one religious group or another lives. We're a home for anybody and we like it that way.”

A statement sent out by Rabbi Eliot Malomet of the Highland Park Conservative Temple - Congregation Anshe Emeth said, “(We) know that this act is an aberration (and) it is certainly not representative of the overall sense of good neighborliness and communal solidarity that we are blessed with in Highland Park.”

The local police advised the community to remain calm, stating that their department will be increasing surveillance of the downtown. "All of our officers are aware of the sensitivity of this situation," said Highland Park Police Chief Steven Rizco in a published statement.

Anyone with information is also asked to call the Highland Park Police Detective Bureau at (732) 572-3800, or the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office at (732) 745-3300.

Geoff Herzog also contributed to the research for this article.

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