Brownsville, Brooklyn: How Chabad Is Breathing New Life Into A Historically Multicultural Community

“Chabad’s Brownsville foothold there began with Rabbi Israel Jacobson. who led the Anshei Dobroisk synagogue. A shliach of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, he entered the U.S. in 1925 and became one of the first Lubavitcher emissaries here. Chabad was one of many groups that flourished during Brownsville’s heyday, which lasted until the late 1960s. Then, when urban crime spiraled, incomes rose, and housing alternatives grew in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, most of the community Jews exited.”

“Fast forward to today and the question becomes: Why would Orthodox Jews, primarily
Chabad, move into what for decades was known as a high crime area? It didn’t take long in my conversation with them for Rabbis Levi Vogel and Yossi Overlander, local residents active in the “Brownsville Anash,” to dispel the “high crime” characterization of the neighborhood.”