Web Update
By: Cara Latham
Editor’s Note: The online version of this story differs from that printed in the Nov. 30 Messenger-Press because the information regarding the arrest of two area men in the attack on the yeshiva house did not become available until after The Messenger-Press went to print.
ROOSEVELT — State police have charged two men in connection with a
paintball attack last week on a single-family house that is home to about a
dozen Jewish students.
The incident was not motivated by anti-Semitism, according to police.
Michael Baniowski, 18, of Monroe, and Brian Moore, 19, of Roosevelt, were
arrested Monday night, a week after the incident happened at Yeshiva Me-On
Hatorah on North Rochdale Avenue. Both were charged with criminal mischief
and harassment, said Sgt. Stephen Jones of the state police.
On Nov. 20 at 12:26 a.m., more than 50 paintball rounds struck the house.
At the time, police would not say whether they were looking into it as a
religiously motivated attack, but Sgt. Jones said Wednesday that the men?s motive behind the attack was
"boredom."
"(Police) didn’t find anything that could really prove harassment because
of the religion," he said. "We did interview the both of them, and we had
some eyewitnesses that placed them at that scene a number of days later
harassing some of the students outside of the building."
Sgt. Jones said the subsequent verbal harassment was not religious in
nature.
Both men were released pending a court date. Mr. Baniowski is scheduled to
be arraigned in Millstone Township’s Municipal Court on Dec. 5. No date has yet
been set for Mr. Moore.
Sgt. Jones said that while the charges of criminal mischief and harassment
are not high level, the state police still treated the case as such.
"The detectives really took this matter very seriously because of the
possibility of it being a hate crime," he said. "They solved it quickly
through diligent detective work."
And "the witness accounts certainly helped speed that up," he added.
Joshua Pruzansky, the executive vice president of the yeshiva, said Tuesday
that he was happy that the case was quickly solved.
"I’m glad the police caught it," he said. "Hopefully, justice will be
served."
Earlier in the week, before the arrests, Pruzansky said that he thought it
could have been a religiously biased attack.
There are "300 houses in Roosevelt, and (the yeshiva house) was the only one
attacked with the paintballs," he said. "I have suspicions that religious
bias has to do with it."
And this is not the first time the yeshiva has been targeted, he said.
"In the past, there have been a few incidents of verbal harassment, but
this is the first physical form of harassment and hopefully the last," Mr.
Pruzansky said.
Mr. Pruzansky said Tuesday that yeshiva officials are hopeful the arrests
will deter others from doing the same.
"I hope that once people see that the police are very much involved, they?
ll learn not to do it," he said.
The incident also caught the attention of the Anti-Defamation League, which
condemned the paintball attack.
"In the last year, the tenor of the debate in the community surrounding the
opening of the yeshiva has concerned us," said Etzion Neuer, the director of
ADL’s New Jersey office, in a press release. "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 here in New Jersey and runs
counter to our state values of acceptance and respect for diversity."
Mr. Pruzansky said the "very intense land use debate about the yeshiva"
within the community has spurred a lot of rhetoric about the yeshiva and the
synagogue on Homestead Lane, and that "henceforth, the (borough) leadership
should try to cut it down so that in the future, people won?t be motivated" to engage in attacks like the one that occurred last week.
Mayor Beth Battel called the incident deplorable and added that Borough
Council will be discussing "townwide security" at its next meeting, Dec. 4,
including the possibility of instituting a neighborhood watch.
The yeshiva has been the center of debate and legal battles, even before
its opening in September 2005.
Voters kicked former Mayor Neil Marko out of office in a recall election in
February and elected Mayor Battel to the post amid allegations that Mr.
Marko had a conflict of interest over the then-proposed yeshiva at
Congregation Anshei Roosevelt, where he was a former trustee and board
president.
On Sept. 12, the Planning Board declared that the Orthodox Jewish school
operating from a synagogue on Homestead Lane violates local law. The board’s
decision prompted the yeshiva?s attorney to say he will file an appeal in
state Superior Court, claiming the yeshiva is protected under the First
Amendment.
At its Sept. 26 meeting, the Planning Board said it wanted more information
before deciding on the appeal. Former Zoning Officer Bob Francis testified
then that he had issued the zoning violation in May to Paul Brottman, the
owner of 53 North Rochdale Ave., because 11 boys attending the yeshiva were
living in the single-family house in what appeared to be a dormitory. The
basis of the violation is that a dorm is not a permitted use in the
residential/agricultural zone.
Meanwhile, a hearing for an appeal of a zoning violation received by the
owner and tenants of the single-family house on Rochdale Avenue, which was
attacked, is scheduled to continue Dec 12.
The hearing was supposed to continue Nov. 20, the same day of the attacks,
but Planning Board Attorney Michele Donato could not attend the hearing.
The yeshiva, a school where Orthodox Jewish males 13 years and older study
the Torah, also has been at the center of a debate between proponents who
say the school is a welcome addition to the borough and opponents who say
its presence threatens to upend the town?s diversity as well as its school
system.

