I had business in Newark this week and happened upon a copy of the Jersey Journal, the newspaper I delivered as a child that I hadn’t laid eyes on in decades. News of Leiby Kletzky’s death, the 8-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy whose remains were found in the killer’s refrigerator and a nearby trash bin, was splattered on the pages on today’s edition.
The story is so horrific that it was necessary to take breaks between paragraphs, for every detail is exactly as you imagined it in your worst nightmares as a parent. You cry along with the live coverage of the rabbi’s bullhorn speech outside the temple that night, his voice breaking as he struggles to come to grips with savagery so deep it makes one question the very existence of God.
I was around Leiby’s age when I started delivering The Jersey Journal through the streets etched in the hillside of Jersey City Heights. My bike was wobbly under the weight of the papers as I would fling the latest news onto the doorstep by day and then knock on that same door in the evenings to collect the money for the weekly delivery.
I would be invited into countless houses as customers fumbled in their purses or wallets for tips and payments. You think how many times you could have met the same fate as poor Leiby as adults lured you into the parlor and you say a silent prayer in thanks that God kept you safe years ago.
I’m sure newspaper organizations are keenly aware of the liabilities and risks of putting a child in that situation in this day and age, which is why they now go the impersonal route of paper route management and bill customers in the mail for home delivery. Paper routes cover entire towns as less people get their news from tree pulp and if you would put my paper carrier in a lineup and ask me to pick that person out, I couldn’t do it.
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You think of the neighborhood you were brought up in and how it so mirrors little Leiby’s environment. There is a tight-knit community of Orthodox Jews in his Brooklyn neighborhood that stuck to themselves while the outside world gawked at their black clothes, long beards, and stove pipe hats. The notion that his murderer emerged from that same community is simply incomprehensible.
Hudson County New Jersey might as well have been another county of Ireland back in the Seventies, with so many of the “folks from home” lining the shingled working class houses. The racist inclination in the phrase “those people” referred to the Polish Catholics and Italian Catholics that somehow snuck into your little Irish American enclave. How’s that for diversity?
I often wondered as a child what ran through my parents mind as they looked out the back window of our apartment; the lush patchwork fields and majestic mountains of Ireland replaced by a rust-dusted industrial landscape dotted with factories and tractor trailers instead of lambs. The Irish huddled tightly with one another in this new home and everyone watched over the community’s children, probably because they were all joined from their lonesomeness for home.
One of my earliest memories was being parked on the street of Central Avenue alongside other strollers as my parents joined other moms and dads for some shopping on Rosen’s Furniture showroom.
How did we get here? Parents never had to worry about parking the stroller on the busy street with nothing more than a milk bottle in the child’s hands. Now, your eyes dart nervously over to the car every 5 seconds when you chance leaving the kids inside while you take a few steps into the 7 Eleven for a carton of milk and even then, you wonder if some Child Services van will screech into the parking lot and slap cuffs on you.
It’s fashionable to say the world is a different place now and you can’t trust anyone anymore, but I’m not buying that entirely. Creeps and murderers didn’t just show up in the last decade. Let’s tell a nasty truth: we just made it easier for them to operate.
Despite the inner city dynamic, parents knew every kid in a two block radius when and where I grew up and they also knew faces and models of cars that didn’t belong on the street. There is a whole row of houses at the lip of my cul de sac and I couldn’t tell you any last names of the inhabitants.
A community kept the kids in line and if Mrs. Rossi yelled at you, your parents didn’t instantly pitch a fit and take the kid’s side of the argument as they do now.
We didn’t have iPods plugged into our ears at all times. A rapist could be pillaging their victims to their hearts content in the woods where I walk my dog at night and I would never hear it.
Security cameras clearly caught poor Leiby Kletzky walking by himself, confused as to the right direction home before grainy video shows him entering into the car for a ride that soon ends his life. Your heart breaks for the family as everyone became a mourning Orthodox Jew the night he died and the larger community wept on the humid sidewalk. Times have indeed changed and so have you. You’d like to think you come from good Irish stock and are not that detached from your fellow man that you wouldn’t notice a confused little boy wandering the sidewalk, but you soon lose confidence that your presence would have made a difference on a street in Brooklyn this week.
I pray for the boy’s innocent soul and for the parents comfort and I also add another prayer to become a better citizen in my community. Perhaps that’s the message and call to action that our Maker is sending to us all with this tragic death. Rest in peace, Leiby.
19 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.eibhleann7 | Jul 24, 2011, 04:00 PM EDT
The authorities had given out the information on the case to all the public. If you spent less time crying wolf, and more time dealing with facts, you too, would have the same information. Oh, well....
eiriamach | Jul 22, 2011, 01:14 PM EDT
eibhleann7 writes, "It's amazing how some sick twisted individuals will use this tragedy for their own deviant agendas." It's amazing that eibhleann7 can find some reason to spew venom in any tragedy. Is Searlit and others do not know the motive, they might consult eibhleann7, who thinks she knows everything.
eibhleann7 | Jul 17, 2011, 05:47 PM EDT
GOD rest his little soul and give comfort to the family. It's amazing how some sick twisted individuals will use this tragedy for their own deviant agendas. This poor boy was attacked by one of his own kind, not a Christian, Muslim, or Arab. There is no anti-semite motive here. It's simply a sad outcome of a mentally ill person falling through the system cracks and not getting the help he needed at the cost of a young life. Now, he will most likely live out his life behind bars.....Too little too late.
Searlit | Jul 17, 2011, 10:57 AM EDT
@ Eiriamach, I haven't heard anything about a motive.
Suivness10 | Jul 17, 2011, 08:57 AM EDT
This crime is overpowering to us all; and so it should be. Sad and tragic. May his memory be a blessing (said by Jews when someone dies), and may he rest in peace. I have tears in my eyes as I write this.
firinne | Jul 17, 2011, 02:55 AM EDT
This is a profoundly staggering crime. There are perhaps several names for the sickness that is in the head of this monster. And by these many scientific terms, this monster will swindle the executioner! Katiemac, your list of “feels good, do it’s” and your comment about the “secularization” of our society also misses the target completely. This type of monster has been with us since the dawn of time. It’s not wise to presume a reason for this type of crime, as this would limit our attention and scope of our awareness and preparedness against these monsters. They lurk everywhere, on the streets, and in churches, playgrounds, alleyways, homes, even at work! For our children, women and ourselves, we must be as vigilant and prepared. Not paranoid, not vengeful, and certainly not shortsighted. In the memory of the wee lad Leiby, we all shall give a prayer for the soul of this young boy as well for the peace of the boy’s family, who are trying to come to terms with this madness. May God bless us all. Slan
mcdolan | Jul 16, 2011, 10:11 PM EDT
Rest in peace, Leiby. Sad, sad, sad. Is it the world or people who have changed? Growing up in Brooklyn in the 50s, we were put into the 'aerie' (area in front of a house) in the baby carriage, or on a long piece of robe tied to the fence so we didn't wander into the street. Neighbors watched out for everyone's children. What has happened to us all?
eiriamach | Jul 16, 2011, 10:06 PM EDT
Searlit, no doubt you have more facts about this case than I have. I guess I was misled by the paragraph beginning "Hudson County, New Jersey" into thinking that the killer was anti-Semitic. The Hasidim, however, can be targets even to other Jews, so I really do not know. Do you know what the motive was?
bronxjames | Jul 16, 2011, 05:54 PM EDT
Why is this SOB still breathing. He should have been tossed out of the police car and into the hands of the people chasing the car. Jews, Blacks, Hispanics every race wants him dead. I know it wont bring Leiby back but it will sure make millions of people happy. KILL HIM NOW!!!
irishwriter | Jul 16, 2011, 05:48 PM EDT
@Katiemac....you're entitled to your own opinion, of course, I just don't see how homosexuality and abortion caused this...?? Ya lost me on that one.
donal1951 | Jul 16, 2011, 01:09 PM EDT
When I was the 8-year-old's age, some 52 years ago, my parents thought nothing of my walking around New Haven, CT. Later, as a high schooler, I hitchhiked alone to a folk music concert in Peterboro, N.Y., and with a friend to Quebec City so we could drink beer and see the sights. How things have changed, even in a homogeneous neighborhood that should have been safe for the lad, especially with the precautions the parents took.
mamaginnty | Jul 16, 2011, 12:06 PM EDT
So so sad, we would all like to think we could have saved the child/children, but life has changed so much that you are actually scared to approach a child if hes/she looks lost, in case you are accused of trying to kidnap or worse. As has happened before, a mother shouting "why are you talking to my child ..what are you up too" and the person only trying to help.
Bermudagirl | Jul 16, 2011, 11:49 AM EDT
Everything Mike has said makes so much sense. What he says about communities back in the day and the way they are now is relevant all over the world. I live in Bermuda. Growing up here, it was the norm for other moms to look out for you and discipline you. Now if you try and correct someone else's child that parent will want to cuss you out. It makes one just mind their business and not step in when you see things amiss. The same thing about knowing your neighbour. There was a time when you knew everyone in the neighbourhood and spent time together. Now you may just wave to the neighbours, not knowing their names or who belongs in their household or who doesn't. If someone were to enter their house who doesn't belong and is up to no good, how many neighbours actually look out for that and know when something's not right? We used to, but many of us don't anymore. Sad. As for this precious little boy, I'm torn between extreme sadness for him and anger at the monster who did this. I feel so badly for his parents because I know they're wracked with guilt and questioning themselves as to if they should have done things differently. Someone mentioned fate-how this boys just ran into this evil man at that precise moment, instead of moments before or after when he would have run into someone who would have genuinely helped. Fate can be cruel, so maybe it was fate that led him to this man. We'll never know. I just keep his parents in my thoughts and hope they have the strength to carry on and forgive themselves for this-it wasn't their fault, and they shoudn't blame themselves. I pray they find peace.
Searlit | Jul 16, 2011, 11:35 AM EDT
@ eiriamach, please explain "Anti-Semitic hate crime". I think the killer is an Orthodox Jewish male. The innocent child was a Hasidic Jewish boy. This crime put me into shock for a few days. It was more than my psyche would let in. My prayers go out to Leiby's family. May he rest in peace.
eiriamach | Jul 16, 2011, 11:14 AM EDT
This is a well told story. The sensitive memoir-style writing helps one to take in the tragedy of an Anti-Semitic hate crime against this child and his community.
EileenOfarrell | Jul 16, 2011, 10:21 AM EDT
Growing up in Brooklyn many years ago, we were taught by our parents that there are two kinds of 'smart' - book smart and street smart. Being street smart allowed us to enjoy our freedom & adventures as young children. If we didn't do well in the book smart department, our street activities were curtailed until our grades improved. Evil people have been around for a long time but now that we have 24/7 news, we hear about it more. RIP Leiby.
cuddlybuddly | Jul 16, 2011, 09:30 AM EDT
How could such a deranged man exist without someone knowing He was odd? sickened, I desperately try to wrap my head around it and and cant..was it destiny? was it fate? how can such despicable things happen around us..something is very wrong..
cillowen | Jul 16, 2011, 09:18 AM EDT
instructed on not talking to strangers, who knew it would be one of their own - disgusting sad crazed monster.
cillowen | Jul 16, 2011, 09:17 AM EDT
instructed on not talking strangers, who knew it would be one of their own - disgusting sad crazed monster.