New York, NY – With Boy’s Killing, Parents Confront Worst Fears

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    New York, NY – They are the road rules of parenting, the self-defense tips of childhood, the maxims passed down for generations: Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t sit in the last car of the subway train. If you are lost, look for someone in a uniform. If something bad happens, scream!

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    Every day, parents put their faith in those rules and send their children, with a silent prayer, off into the world, trying to push away the knowledge that something bad could happen, as if thinking it would make it come true.

    On Wednesday, it did come true for one Brooklyn family, as the body of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky was found dismembered two days after he disappeared on a short walk between his day camp and where he was supposed to meet his parents. The boy, who had implored his parents for permission to walk home from camp alone, got lost and ran into a stranger who, the police said, kidnapped and killed him.

    For parents across New York City, the tragedy set off a wave of fear, self-doubt and sometimes fatalism. The rules of parenting suddenly seemed flimsy, and the world became a scarier place, despite the relatively low crime rate.

    “It hasn’t happened for a long time,” said Leslie Wolf-Creutzfeldt, a mother of two on the Upper West Side. “One feels kind of safe about the city, because there are so many people around. But if it happens to be a crazy person, then you realize, maybe, there’s nothing you can do.”

    Raising children is a constant calculus. What age is too young for them to go out alone? When do you begin stunting their independence if you are overprotective?

    A Hasidic woman who lived down the block from the slain boy, and whose husband helped with the search, wrestled with that balancing act.

    When she sent her two sons to school on Wednesday morning, Leiby was fresh in her mind as she counseled them, “Don’t talk to strangers,” said the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of upsetting her neighbors. But, she said, “I don’t want to scare him too much either; I want him to like his life.” On the other hand, she said, when parents are overprotective, “kids feel love that way too.”

    But police say there is no reason to panic.

    “This is every parent’s nightmare, but this type of incident is extremely rare,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday.


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    11 Comments
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    shredready
    shredready
    12 years ago

    When she sent her two sons to school on Wednesday morning, Leiby was fresh in her mind as she counseled them, “Don’t talk to strangers,” said the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of upsetting her neighbors. But, she said, “I don’t want to scare him too much either; I want him to like his life.” On the other hand, she said, when parents are overprotective, “kids feel love that way too.”

    smart woman

    12 years ago

    Never get in a stranger’s car. Don’t get in the car. Don’t. Get. In. The. Car.

    Except that our community seems to feel hitchhiking is perfectly fine.

    Walking home wasn’t the problem. Leiby wasn’t grabbed off the street – he willingly went with this lowlife (who will rot in hell and hopefully suffer excruciatingly before he gets there) because too many of us don’t teach our kids the basic safety rule of not going with someone they don’t know. Yes, the vast majority of people who offer rides don’t do anything inappropriate but getting in the car puts the victim in the perpetrator’s control and that is too high a risk to take.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    12 years ago

    While in no way trivializing the death of this bochur, such tragic events are very rare within the heimeshe community and we should not make our children paranoid with fear of every stranger who walks by or otherwise make them live with the belief that bad things could happen at any moment. Simply provide good, basic common sense guidelines but work agressively within the kehillah to quickly idenitfy and detain any adults showing signs of deviant behavior. The time of simply reporting such suspicions to the rabbon is over. Its time to be agressive in preemptive actions to minimize the liklihood of future acts of inappropriate behavior such as in this case.

    12 years ago

    Dear mothers, as much as this is traumatic for kids an parents (in a certain sense for us mothers even more so, because our confidence is being rattled) nevertheless it is still the most opportune time to instill emuna in our kids. Their first reaction upon hearing such unusual and very scary stuff is shock and disbelief. Then, million questions to follow. If we ch”v give them some wrong and bitter answers they may, as a result revert their anger and revulsion to Hashem (כביכול) and thus begin a dangerous slippery slope, and resulting in another kid at risk. There are many Ken insights and approaches that could help with reinforcing their emuna,and ultimately gaining an advantage from this tragedy. If you are at a loss as to what to answer your kids, and how to avoid answering questions that are not age appropriate, and of course we don’t lie to them and breach their trust (we must however tweak some gory details if they have gleaned info). It is best to consult with experts if you’re at a loss.

    Ahuvah54
    Ahuvah54
    12 years ago

    I agree that hitching in this day and age is simply insane. I see high-school-age boys doing it all the time.

    Consensus at work, if you’re a kid and you’re lost you can go into a store and talk to a staff person or Ask A Mommy With Children. These are doable and I think kids need guidelines.

    The world has changed, again.

    And I don’t feel safer

    12 years ago

    While still absorbing the days news, I was barely able to drive to work on Tuesday, when on the way I saw 2 bochurim who couldn’t have been more than 14 years old, with the all too familiar thumb in the air. I was this close to getting out of my car and give them tzvei gitta petch. Can we please take the bus if it is too hot to walk? can we teach our children that? not just our little ones but our early teenagers too!! obviously they haven’t learned from this horrific tragedy.

    12 years ago

    Who remembers about 35 years ago happened a story of a young Hasidic lady who went to buy a coat in the midtown garment center and never returned home.
    Her body was found in a similar situation as this boy.
    It did not happen for 35 years in our community again. Now it happened in worse nature because it was done by a Jewish murder.
    On one side we must be alarmed to teach our kids to stay away from strangers. On the other side we have to increase more Ahavas Yisroel between ourselves. Achdus between all Jews and stay away from Sinaas achim. All the Machlokos within the community is a big kitrug on klal Yisroel.
    The great work we have just seen on the thousands of people helping in the search, is a proof that the community is capable to live in peach with each other.

    SHMOOSER
    SHMOOSER
    12 years ago

    This it to
    Dov Hikind
    maybe take the reward money and wright a safer Torah lei’lo nishmas Leiby zt’l