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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."