Clifton, New Jersey Warlocks, Witches and Swastikas

By RICHARD BEHAR

Mike dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player -- but hey, it was "Mischief Night," the eve before Halloween, and the 14-year-old had another sport on his mind: Jew baiting. Using a can of shaving cream, he sprayed the words F--- YOU JEW BAGEL, without the dash, on the garage of Eugene Markovitz, 67, the oldest and most prominent rabbi in Clifton, N. J. Joining the fun were Mike's pals Johnny (whose best friend, he says, is Jewish) and Peter (whose grandfather rescued Holocaust Jews in Holland). I HATE JEWS, scrawled one boy. GO BACK TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY, wrote another. After squirting the house with blue paint, a fourth boy, Tony sprayed a swastika on the car of Saul Shaw, a 79-year-old Jew who lives a few blocks away. Markovitz's temple and a kosher delicatessen were also barraged. That was 1988, but for the next two years the aftermath of these hate crimes continued to roil the complacency of this lily-white suburb and its 75,000 residents.

Last summer the four fresh-faced lads (whose names are changed here) -- the sons of a dentist, a teacher, a banker and a part-time police officer -- were shown to seats in the sanctuary of the Clifton Jewish Center, one of the buildings they defaced. They were chewing gum, cracking knuckles, trying to balance yarmulkes on their heads. Markovitz broke the tension. "Am I to judge you by your earrings?" the rabbi asked one boy from the pulpit. "You all grew up with beautiful families, but you must never take anything for granted. You must always relearn the lesson of freedom."

Twelve months ago, Superior Court Judge Frank Donato was tempted to send these first-time offenders, all age 13 to 14, to a juvenile prison for two years. After all, their rampage had coincided with the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the shattering of Jewish property in Germany and Austria that marked the start of the Holocaust. Victim Shaw, who broke down and cried in court while recalling the death of his best friend by "Nazi bullets," had unsuccessfully begged the judge to release the boys' names to the press. "They should have been persecuted, not prosecuted," says Shaw angrily. But at a hearing last Halloween, Donato ordered the boys to attend 25 hours of classes on Jewish culture, to be taught by Markovitz at the temple he has led for 40 years. "He wants to be part of the healing," noted Donato at the time.

If the sentence was unusual, the offense, unfortunately, was not. Crimes of prejudice are on the rise in New Jersey. In 1989 there were 112 reports of anti-Semitic vandalism in that state, a 67% increase from 1988 (in contrast to 2.7% for the entire nation), according to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Thus New Jersey's efforts to cope with the crisis are being watched elsewhere. Last June, inspired by Donato's sentence, a panel of three judges in Westchester County, N.Y., subjected three anti-Semitic vandals to a Holocaust quiz. In preparation, the young men, ages 18 to 20, were required to read a chapter from James Michener's Poland that describes a Nazi death camp.

In the Clifton case, the boys got an inspired teacher. Anti-Semitism had driven Markovitz's father, also a rabbi, to abandon prewar Romania for Brooklyn in 1938. Eugene was then 15, and the experience sparked him to become heavily involved in community affairs. He earned a master's degree in American history and, in the 1960s, served on local commissions that mediated race riots and rehabilitated delinquent youth. More recently, Markovitz has served as a visiting professor at a nearby college, as well as a chaplain to Clifton's police and fire departments.

The rabbi was bursting with zeal and passion to help the vandals, even though some fellow Jews feared that he was wasting his time. "One must never give up on young people," says Markovitz. "In Judaism, it's literally a crime to do so." He subjected the four boys to a Holocaust film, visits by local Christian clergy and discussions of other bias crimes that have made headlines. The boys are not especially articulate -- three are struggling in school, and all are prone to macho posturing -- but they are hardly neo-Nazis in training. They are likable kids who, like so many of their generation, sport stylish haircuts, $75 sneakers and bright-colored jackets emblazoned with the logos of college sports teams. None appear to have discovered smoking, drinking or drugs. "The scariest part is that it's usually the boy next door," says William Johnston, who directs the nation's oldest hate- crimes police unit in Boston. "You're looking for the shaved head and the Doc Martens boots. Well, there are plenty of 'skinheads' out there, and they look just like you and me."

The teens insisted they bear no real animosity toward Jews, that their Halloween prankishness was inspired by old World War II movies and schoolyard jokes. Yet a week before Mischief Night, Mike painted a swastika on a school wall that he, Tony and Peter signed with their names. Tony privately admits that while walking the streets, he and his buddies would sometimes quietly mock the "funny-looking beanies" Orthodox Jews wear.

The Clifton youths embody contradictions and insensitivities that are getting harder to contain as American society grows more ethnically diverse. On the one hand, they seemed genuinely sorry about their acts. On the other hand, they couple their admissions of wrongdoing with observations, like Peter's, that Jews "push things too far. They think we owe them." Mike doesn't dislike Jews, but feels that they are generally "cheap." Tony would like to see a world where Jews and others don't "overreact" when they see swastikas. He also suspects that the elderly Shaw's emotional breakdown in court was "fake."

Peter's father, a bank vice president, would like to get to the bottom of the vandalism. "Before I go six feet under, I'd like to get the whole story about where they got these ideas," he says. But even he shoulders some of the blame for not communicating more with his son. Peter's grandfather risked his life hiding Jews beneath the floorboards of his home in northern Holland during WWII. Yet Peter first learned of this heroic legacy not from his father but from Rabbi Markovitz. Explains the father: "The Holocaust just wasn't something we talked about in the house."

The boys' ignorance about their own backgrounds extends to religion. All were surprised when Markovitz told them that Christianity sprouted from Judaism. Until last year, three boys attended church regularly, but none could name his own priest. Nevertheless, Markovitz gave untiringly to his students, not once expressing any rage over their crimes. In return, the boys marveled at this forgiving little man who lavished so much talk and kindness and humor on them. "The rabbi is one of the nicest guys you could know," says Mike. The teens' parents concur, but they are also bitter about the public attention that surrounded the case. "My son received more punishment than drug dealers with guns," laments Mike's mother, a Clifton housewife.

In the end, Markovitz offered to provide the boys with letters of recommendation for future jobs or schools. "They were not very expressive, yet each had something to say," he noted. "When you deal with children their age, they may seem not to be listening, but you leave their young minds with images and symbols. They see that the rabbi and priest are good friends. The mystery of Judaism is removed, and they see its commonality with their own religion. They don't have to love Jews, but they've learned to respect them."

For almost two years Markovitz couldn't bring himself to clean the profanities from his garage. The rain washed away a top layer of cream, but a legible residue was left behind. "I could have painted it 100 times," he says, staring at a fading swastika. "How could four kids from the neighborhood, whose parents are fairly prominent, do this? I decided I would try to bring some cure to it. Then I'd repaint."