“A Community of Families, A Family of Communities”

“A Community of Families, A Family of Communities” is a slogan associated with Newton’s civic self-image, expressing the promise that the town is a safe, supportive place to raise children. In the wake of Ben Rifkin’s murder, that promise becomes sharply ambiguous: the crime violates the town’s sense of itself, while fear and suspicion help isolate the family of the accused boy.

A slogan and a civic ideal

For a time, a sign in Newton Centre displayed the phrase. It belonged to a broader conviction that Newton was “a good place to raise kids,” reflected in the town’s test-preparation centers, after-school tutors, karate schools, and Saturday soccer leagues. Families who had left city life and accepted the expense and monotony of the suburbs had invested in that ideal; for some ambivalent residents, the promise of a good place for children made the whole suburban choice worthwhile.

The murder and the violated self-image

The murder of a child made the slogan’s promise newly fragile. Residents were shocked not only by violence itself but by the fact that one of Newton’s children had been killed. The crime challenged the town’s cherished distinction between a safe family community and the violence its residents associated with elsewhere. The slogan therefore frames the community’s response as more than grief: the murder threatens a shared account of what Newton is and what its families believed they had secured by living there.

From public spectacle to private stigma

That ideal of family life also sharpens the contrast between communal belonging and public judgment. News coverage presented Jacob Barber as a monster, while online discussion made him a subject of competing claims about his innocence, character, and possible violence. Reporters filmed the Barber family outside their home and swarmed them at the courthouse; someone marked their house with the words “MURDERER” and “WE HATE YOU.” The slogan’s language of community thus stands beside an experience of exposure and hostility rather than protection.

The ideal after the trial

The case’s abrupt end did not restore the family’s place in Newton. Neighbors might accept that Jacob had not been convicted while remaining disturbed by his knife, violent fantasies, and family history. The Barbers did not send him back to school locally, and he continued his education at home. He was content in solitude and favored the idea of moving farther away, while the family considered other places where they might begin again. The slogan’s promise remains visible, but the town’s treatment of Jacob shows how easily belonging can be withheld even when legal judgment has not established guilt.