Student's bowling event helps rebuild cemetery
Yeshiva teen raises $12,000 to renovate toppled gravestones
, NJJN Bureau Chief/Middlesex | 06.05.08

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When Akiva Neuman, 17, of Highland Park heard about the teens who razed gravestones at Poile Zedek Cemetery in New Brunswick in January, he wanted to involve other teens in its restoration.

  Akiva Neuman of Highland Park, a student at the Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy in Elizabeth, presents Rabbi Abraham Mykoff of Congregation Poile Zedek in New Brunswick with a symbolic check for the funds he helped raise to repair a vandalized New Brunswick cemetery. Photo courtesy the Jewish Educational Center
 

Akiva Neuman of Highland Park, a student at the Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy in Elizabeth, presents Rabbi Abraham Mykoff of Congregation Poile Zedek in New Brunswick with a symbolic check for the funds he helped raise to repair a vandalized New Brunswick cemetery. Photo courtesy the Jewish Educational Center
   

On May 14 three buses filled with students made their way to Jersey Lanes in Linden, where they participated in a bowling marathon, collecting pledges from friends and family for pins knocked down.

Organized by Akiva, a junior at Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy in Elizabeth, the bowl-athon was part of an effort that raised more than $12,000 to restore the cemetery.

"I'm the vice president of hesed [acts of kindness]" at the school, said Akiva, who is known as Kivi. "I read about the cemetery in the newspaper, about how four teenagers vandalized the place. I spoke about it with my mom because I wanted to do something that showed teenagers could help."

He said he was also motivated by hesed shel emet — the truest act of kindness — adding, "People don't realize or don't understand that doing something for the dead is a huge hesed shel emet. The good deed is completely for altruistic purposes," he said.

Akiva is the son of Isaac Neuman of Brooklyn and Susan and Alan Redlich of Highland Park. He attended Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva in Edison.

Four teenagers were arrested and sentenced to juvenile detention in the vandalism spree, which toppled or damaged some 600 headstones. Initial estimates placed the damage at between $500,000 and $1 million.

The student's efforts will augment restoration funds set up by the two synagogues that share the cemetery — Congregation Poile Zedek in New Brunswick and Congregation Etz Ahaim in Highland Park — and the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County.

The cemetery repair is expected to be completed by June 29 when a rededication ceremony will be held (see sidebar).

Akiva said he spent much of his Passover break texting and meeting with fellow students to lay the groundwork for his effort and was heartened by the responses.

Rabbi Eliyahu D. Teitz, associate dean of the Jewish Educational Center schools in Elizabeth, the parent body of the Teitz yeshiva, said the project "was wonderful on a number of fronts."

"It shows the kind of commitment he has that over Pesach vacation he was texting and e-mailing friends about the bowl-athon," said Teitz. "On a broader level, Kivi obviously felt shocked and found a way to get a bunch of teenagers to make a real difference. In helping to get those tombstones repaired he showed leadership qualities of the highest order."

Originally, Akiva said, he hoped to get 200 students to collect $50 each. Although only 150 actually participated, larger than expected totals pushed the final sum past the original goal of $10,000, with donations still coming in.

Moishy Heideman of Highland Park raised $2,500; Baruch Lewinson of Hillside brought in about $1,500.

For every $50 in pledges they raised, students had their names entered into raffles for donated prizes including iPods, clothing, and tickets to sporting events. Jerusalem Pizza and Dunkin' Donuts in Elizabeth donated refreshments at the bowling event. Seth Gerszberg of Highland Park, chief executive officer of Marc Ecko Enterprises, donated Ecko-brand clothing, according to Akiva.

At a school assembly on May 19, Akiva presented Rabbi Abraham Mykoff of Poile Zedek with a symbolic check.

"I was very impressed," said Mykoff. "In a certain way it's most fitting since on one hand we've seen what teenagers have done destructively, and in contrast we now see what they can do constructively."

That sentiment was shared by Rabbi David Bassous of Etz Ahaim.

"I think it's tremendous," he said. "It's good to know there are people in the community who are involved in learning and are givers."

A REDEDICATION CEREMONY has been scheduled for Sunday, June 29, at a New Brunswick cemetery where about 600 gravestones were either toppled or destroyed by four teens on a drunken vandalism spree only six months before.

The community is invited to the 11 a.m. prayer service at the Joyce Kilmer Avenue cemetery, according to Rabbi David Bassous, who organized the ceremony. Local dignitaries will attend, he said.

"We expect that the cemetery will be fully repaired by then," said Bassous.

The headstones were desecrated on Jan. 1 and 4 by four teens who were arrested several days later and spent 68 days in the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center.

The cemetery is shared by Orthodox Congregation Poile Zedek in New Brunswick and Sephardi Congregation Etz Ahaim in Highland Park.

In March the toppled stones were set in place with money from a fund set up by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County. These funds have been used to replace stones of those who have no living family in the community. The synagogues also have funds set up to offset repair costs, originally estimated at between $500,000 and $1 million. The funds will not fully cover the repair costs, and some families have chosen to use their own funds to replace stones too badly damaged to be restored.

For information, call Bassous at Etz Ahaim at 732-247-3839.

— DEBRA RUBIN


Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News