Remembering The Riots: 20 Years Later

I fought for my family’s safety in a community under fire

Cowering in a tiny, windowless bathroom with my children, in a state of terror, I cried out to my dear, departed mother. “Sarah Basha bas Reb Shimon, save us!” I could hear the shouts of the mob outside…. How had an ordinary Monday evening in Brooklyn, New York in 1991, turned into Russia of the 1800s? There we were, a Jewish family fearing for our lives as the mobs outside our front door ran wildly through the streets, calling for our death.

Additional reporting by Racheli SoferIt had begun innocently enough. My husband and I were on our way home from a meeting when we suddenly saw hundreds of people running down Utica Avenue from the direction of Eastern Parkway—a few blocks from our home in Crown Heights. My son Yossel, who was seven and a half years old at the time, had also seen the crowd coming down the street toward our home. As frightened as he was, he had the presence of mind to quickly pull his siblings into the house and shut the door. I met my children at the top of the stairs and pushed them into the tiny, windowless bathroom, instructing them to lock the door. I dashed into the living room to check on what was happening outside, just as both Yossel and I realized that baby Chaya was still outside. Yossel heroically rushed down the stairs and out the door, grabbed his 18-month-old sister and brought her into the house, shutting the door as the crowd was passing our home. At that terrifying moment, I recalled the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s farbrengen from a few months before. He had discussed our need to yearn for Moshiach and the geula—something that, at that moment, I promised Hashem I would always do.

Seconds later, little Chaya toddled into the living room just as a beer bottle came crashing through the open double windows. The bottle fell at her feet, glass shattering around her, yet she was unharmed.

I picked her up and ran to put her in the bathroom with the other children, a space no more than three feet by three feet. There were now eight children, aged 18 months through 11 years, hiding inside, paralyzed with fear. I blocked the doors to my upstairs apartment with heavy furniture, believing that the end was near—that at any moment the mob would break in and kill us. My frantic call to the Community Council found them to be just as bewildered and frightened as I was. I suggested that they call the National Guard, since it didn’t look like the police were going to protect us.

America, I thought to myself, is no different.

A modern-day pogrom

August 19th marks 20 years since that day in 1991 when the Jewish community of Crown Heights came under violent attack by our neighbors. Four terrible days and nights of anti-Semitic and racist incitement, mayhem, and murder ensued—urged on by the African-American Reverend Al Sharpton. Sharpton, a Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and controversial radio talk-show host, is renowned for his protests, starting in the 1980s, against police brutality and racial injustice.

The riots in Crown Heights were explicitly orchestrated by Sharpton, and were carried out with the absence of a proper response from the police; the city’s African-American mayor, David Dinkins; and other public officials.

Things only came to a halt when the mayor himself sustained a mild head injury, from a bottle thrown at him during a pep rally. Thus, it was only upon literally “feeling our pain” that Mayor Dinkins called in the riot police, who very quickly brought the chaos to an end.

On that hot and horrible Monday evening, exactly 20 years ago, a motorcade had been escorting the Lubavitcher Rebbe back from the Ohel (resting place of the previous Rebbe) when the last car in line was hit by another car while crossing the intersection. The Lubavitch car accidentally swerved up onto the curb at the corner of President Street and Utica Avenue, and two children playing on the sidewalk, young Gavin Cato and his cousin, were struck. Gavin was pinned underneath the car. The yeshiva students in the car jumped out and rushed to lift the car off the child, only to find themselves surrounded by a crowd of enraged African-American men who, instead of helping the yeshiva bochurim, turned violently against them.

Tragically, Gavin Cato died.

The arrival of both Hatzolah and city ambulances served to worsen the situation, as more African-American men appeared, adding to the bedlam with their screaming, cursing, and fighting. Some of the rioters mistakenly believed that Hatzolah was there only to assist the driver, Yosef Lifsh, and the other Jews who were involved in the accident. In reality, Hatzolah clearly assisted Angela Cato, Gavin’s cousin who was injured at the scene of the accident.

One thing led to another and the Jewish community was soon the target of a full-blown riot—America’s second pogrom; the first one had taken place during the funeral of New York City’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef in 1897.

That funeral, one of the largest funerals to have ever taken place in New York City, was attended by more than 50,000 Jews. A number of them were injured when employees of R. Hoe & Company, a manufacturer of printing presses, threw water, paper, wood, and iron from the upper floors of their factory at 504 Grand Street. Some of Hoe’s employees, who had harassed local Jews on previous occasions, beat Jewish mourners. Two hundred police officers responded to the scene, but observers claimed that officers were hitting and pushing the mourners.

In 1991, Crown Heights was almost exclusively composed of three distinct groups: Caribbean-Americans of African descent, who comprised about 50% of the population; African-Americans, who accounted for 39%, and Jews, who made up the remaining 11%, most of whom were Lubavitch chassidim. In the tumultuous days that followed the car accident, African-Americans and Caribbean-Americans targeted the Jewish community, destroying our property, attacking us physically, and abusing us verbally. Edward Shapiro, a noted historian, later called the riot “the most serious anti-Semitic incident in American history.”

Media coverage of the event framed the episode as a story of “black/white tension.” It failed to report the truth—that we were, in fact, the victims of an anti-Jewish pogrom.

Who would help us?

Those of us who lived, and still live, on the streets near the intersection where the accident occurred, share intense personal and collective memories of the event.

There were outside observers who seized the opportunity to unjustly impugn Lubavitchers as intolerant racists, claiming with no justification that we “lorded it over” their fortunes and mistreated our African-American neighbors. A goodly sum in grants was awarded to neighborhood Black/Jewish alliances to promote peace between the two sides; other persons and organizations produced dramatic and artistic works based on the episode, including a “documentary” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which somehow managed to omit any relation to reality. In their version, Crown Heights was a tinderbox just waiting to catch fire, though nothing could be further from the truth.

Our own truth can be found in our miracles, our awakening, and, most importantly, the insights we have gained.

My story really begins two weeks before the riots, on a late Thursday afternoon. My friend and neighbor, Leah, called to say that 10 minutes earlier, she had looked up from the kitchen table where she was working to see a complete stranger, an African-American man, standing in her dining room holding a screw driver in one hand and a toy “menchie” in the other. He explained that he had found the toy outside and wanted to return it. Somehow, Leah maintained her cool and walked toward her front door, motioning for him to follow.

Please see the printed version of Ami Magazine for the rest of the article.

To subscribe to Ami Magazine, call 718-534-8800 or email subscriptions@amimagazine.org. Mention CrownHeights.info for a special subscription discount.