Religious Majority
Jewish boy in Texas suffers in football prayer case.
STEVE FELDMAN
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
p
reparing for one's bar mitzvah evokes a
sense of pride in a Jewish boy. It is some-
thing to shout out to the world: "I'm
going to be a man soon."
But doing so in the small town of Santa Fe,
Texas, may come with a price, or it least it has for
13-year-old Philip Nevelow, whose life has been
made miserable for nearly two years since school-
mates learned he is Jewish.
Philip has been harassed, beaten and threatened in
school and while on his way home, according to his
mother, Donna Nevelow, since students at Santa Fe
Junior High School overheard the youth tell a teacher
that he was beginning his bar mitzvah preparation.
The family has lived in Santa Fe for 15 years.
Court Protection
The town, located about 40 miles south of
Houston, has been in the national news lately as the
place where the most recent U.S. Supreme Court
ruling on school prayer — a case called Doe vs.
Santa Fe Independent School District — originated.
Mormon and Catholic families there challenged the
local practice of student-led sectarian prayers over
the public-address system before the start of high
school football games.
Lower courts, and then the Supreme Court,
decided that the practice is unconstitutional. The
ruling said the Santa Fe scheme of having the high
school student body vote to choose a student to lead
the prayers before each game was a violation of the
separation of church and state.
"We did not have any problems until this court
case came about," Donna Nevelow said. Though the
family did not take a position on school prayer,
Nevelow believes that as the case worked its way
through the courts, conditions grew worse for her
son.
Since then, she said, Philip has been called a
"dirty Jew," had swastikas drawn on his books, was
slammed into his locker and was cornered in a
schoolyard and told "Hitler missed one." More
recently, she said, classmates threatened that he
would be hanged.
Two students were arrested for making terroristic
threats, but Texas has no hate-crimes laws for juve-
nile offenders.
Moskowitz Assailed
Los Angeles
California state legislator is
charging that a major fonder
of Jewish construction pro-
jects in eastern Jerusalem
conspired with a public agency to oper-
ate an illegally financed casino.
A report released by Assemblyman
Scott Wildman, who heads the state's
Joint Legislative Audit Committee, also
recommends that Dr. Irving Moskowitz
be investigated for possible criminal and
corrupt activities and that he be required
to return $12 million in public funds.
Moskowitz has long been a contro-
versial figure in Hawaiian Gardens, a
tiny, low-income city in Los Angeles
County, where he operates a bingo club
and a card casino — and in Jerusalem,
where he has bankrolled Jewish settle-
7/21
2000
26
During an interview, Santa Fe School Superintendent
Richard Ownby downplayed the incidents and sought
to refute Donna Nevelow's allegations of apathy.
"We're doing everything that we can," Ownby
claimed. "I wouldn't say that it's been allowed to go
on.
Ownby said he only learned of the situation after he
received a letter from the local Anti-Defamation
League. Ownby said he then contacted Philip's teach-
ers.
"They don't characterize these events in the same
way the Nevelows do," Ownby said, adding that they
characterized the attacks "mostly as petty-type things
which Philip may have played some part in instigating.
"Hypothetically, if you spit on someone, you get
hit," the school official continued. Ownby said that
since the school-prayer case, the community has been
tense. We have been under a microscope here the last
three, four years."
Donna Nevelow said she was "dumbfounded" by
Ownby's comments.
"Basically, my son is being victimized twice," she
said, asking rhetorically, "When children circle him and
say, 'Heil Hitler,' Philip provoked that? A child of 11 1 /2
does not ask for this. I guess being Jewish was enough
provocation."
Philip's schoolwork has been affected by the attacks,
according to his mother. "His grades suffered horribly
this year." In the classroom, other kids have thrown
things at Philip. She said that Philip is the only "prac-
ticing Jew" in the school.
"
Palestinian rioting in which 15
Israelis and 61 Palestinians were
killed.
The Irving I. Moskowitz
26- Foundation has also provided an
estimated $25 million to establish
Jewish housing in eastern Jerusalem.
He also sends money to U.S. orga-
ments in Arab neighborhoods of east-
nizations opposed to the Oslo peace
ern Jerusalem.
process.
The 72-year-old Moskowitz was
The current investigation and
born in New York, raised in
report focuses on Moskowitz's for-
Milwaukee and now lives in Miami.
profit casino and card club.
He is a retired physician and hospital
After many years of wrangling and
developer and a philanthropist who
planning, the casino opened under a
supports Orthodox and right-wing
Irving Moskowitz, white shirt, visited with Israeli temporary license last December.
causes in Israel.
lawmaker Benny Elon and right-wing settlers in
According to Wildman's report, the
Hawaiian Gardens is less than a
1997 in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem.
Redevelopment Agency of Hawaiian
square mile in size and has some
Gardens subsidized the acquisition
15,000 residents, mostly working-
about half the city's annual budget.
of the casino with $12 million, despite
class Latinos.
Periodically, Moskowitz stopped his
legal restrictions against the use of public
In 1988, Moskowitz took over the
monthly payments. He did so in
funds to subsidize gambling operations.
city's floundering bingo parlor and soon
September 1997, forcing the city to lay
According to the report, "A city that
the 800-seat, nonprofit enterprise was
off its entire 21-person police force.
embarked on an economic revitalization
taking in $33 million a year. He also
effort almost 20 years ago, has little to
acquired one-third of all the commercial
show for its efforts save for an inappro-
Work
In
Old
City
property in Hawaiian Gardens.
priate gaming establishment, approxi-
In
Israel,
Moskowitz
financed
the
exca-
Moskowitz liberally supported civic
mately $12 million in expenditures of
vation
of
a
new
entrance
to
an
archaeo-
and communal projects and subsidized
public funds, and financial dependence
logical
tunnel
in
Jerusalem's
Old
City
the municipal government at the rate of
on the goodwill of one owner/developer,
The opening of that entrance in
$200,000 a month, which amounted to
who
is operating an illegally subsidized
September 1996 sparked three days of
Controversial developer of projects
in Jerusalem accused of wrongdoing.
TOM TUGEND
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
School Downplays Incidents