Queens reacts to Brooklyn boy’s murder

The horrific ending to nine-year old Leiby Kletzky’s life left much of the world in shock and those who followed the story from the beginning of his disappearance never expected the outcome to be so heinous.
“I do not know of a Jew or non-Jew whose heart is not broken,” said a member of the Young Israel of Queens Valley who requested to anonymity. “We are all dumbfounded.”
On Monday, July 12, Kletzky’s parents issued a missing person’s report once Kletzky did not meet them at their arranged spot after day camp. The boy was meant to walk the safe Brooklyn streets alone for the first time and his parents immediately worried when he didn’t show.
After news of his disappearance emerged, Shomrim, a Jewish civilian volunteer patrol, organized a mass search for Kletzky with the help of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Neighbors, friends, family and other New Yorkers came from Brooklyn, Queens and Monsey to help search for the boy.
“Everyone was talking about him so it was hard not to know [he was missing],” said 18-year-old Moshe Wigder, a volunteer search member. Tuesday afternoon, Wigder and a few others were assigned to search the 18th Avenue Park, a few blocks away from where Kletzky was last seen on camera.
Early Wednesday morning parts of Kletzky’s dismembered body were found in the apartment freezer of Levi Aron who confessed to his murder, and other parts were found in a red suitcase in a different part of Brooklyn.
“We are all family,” said Rabbi Michael Weisser of the Free Synagogue of Flushing. “We are spiritually with the family and we suffer with them.”
Rabbi Yossi Blesofsky of the Chabad of Northeast Queens said that once he heard the news of Kletzky’s murder he felt “total, complete shock and then of course anger.”
“I think [I had] the same reaction that everybody had: zero tolerance for all those predators that live among us and are covered up.”
Interestingly, many Jewish people were not surprised that Aron, a Jew, was arrested for admitting killing one of his own. For many, the shock wasn’t towards who did the crime but the crime itself.
Weisser believed the problem was that “the community was such a trusting community. This became a crack in the wall of trust.”
He said that people need to realize that “there is always a chance of there being a bad person out there, even within the community.”
Because Kletzky was kidnapped walking home from camp alone, most Queen’s camps are not changing their dismissal policies since they all rely on bussing and do not let the children walk home alone.
“During the summer we always have bussing and children on the bus have supervising,” said Blesofsky who also runs Chabad’s day camp, Gan Israel.
Blesofsky said that the only change is the stringent enforcement of only allowing parents to pick up their children from the main entrance because the police requested that the camp only use one entrance from now on.