A Shtetl Divided

by Matthew Shaer

Messianic vigilantes, brawling Hasidim, and the battle for Jewish Brooklyn

In the 1860s, when the architect Frederick Law Olmsted arrived in Crow Hill, he found a wasteland of balding farms and graying shale, pimpled by shantytowns and pools of pig excrement. The squalor alarmed Olmsted, and together with his partner, Calvert Vaux, he obtained a commission from the city to design Eastern Parkway, a wide, tree-lined boulevard that eventually connected the brownstones of Park Slope to the tenements of Brownsville and brought a semblance of modernity to the neighborhoods in between.

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Dix Hills Locals Toast Jewish Center’s 18 Years

Lou and Beth Ziemba, center, received an award at the Dec. 12 banquet celebrating Rabbi Yaakov and Zoey Saacks’ 18 years directing the Chai Center of Dix Hills, N.Y. (Photo: Levi Stein)

When Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Yaakov and Zoey Saacks moved from Brooklyn to the Suffolk County community of Dix Hills, N.Y., their newly-formed Chai Center began in their home. Prayer services took place in their dining room; they ran a Hebrew school from their kitchen.

Rabbi Samuel Schrage: the Maccabee

This article was prepared in honor of the Yohrtzeit of Rabbi Shmuel Schrage, which takes place on the 11th of Teves, by Rabbi Michoel Seligson.

“Crown Heights of 1964 turned from a nice neighborhood to a soft territory for crime. People were being robbed, hit, stabbed and even murdered. Five crimes were reported every night. People became prisoners in their own homes”, describes Dr. Morris Mindel. The streets emptied after seven in the evening. Owners of stores were afraid to open, too early in the morning. Women stopped participating in communal events. What was most shocking was an attempted attack on a Lubavitcher woman who did not close the door to her house, while her children were playing in the yard.