20 Years Later, the Healing Continues

Twenty years after riots erupted between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights, newcomers — including hipsters, Latinos and Asians — are calming old racial divisions.

In the years that have passed, the central Brooklyn neighborhood has settled into an uneasy peace, even as many of the mixed-race, kumbaya community groups have fizzled.

Black and Hasidic Jewish residents have more pressing issues than their old animosity: Black-on-black gun violence and the dilution of the ultra-orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish community.

“There are no longer different communities. There is one community made up of different backgrounds,” said Rabbi Joseph Spielman, who led the Jewish Community Council during the three days of rioting.

A handful of upcoming events will mark Aug. 19, 1991, the day Gavin Cato, 7, was killed in a car accident. About three hours after the wreck and five blocks away, 29-year-old Australian scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was fatally stabbed.

Black and Jewish residents in Crown Heights still vividly recall the fights, looting and heavy police presence that followed.

“People started screaming,” said Colin Cohen, the head of the NYPD’s 71st Precinct community council. “The young hot-headed guys said, ‘We need justice. We need to take action.’ They started to react violently.”

Isaac Bitton, 63, was beaten as his 12-year-old son watched.

“There was a bunch of black teenagers, like 40 or 50. They were chanting ‘Jew, Jew, Jew,’” he recalled. “I got a brick to my head.”

Crown Heights in 1991 was home to 200,000 residents. About 83% were African-American and Caribbean-American. Less than 10% — mostly Hasidim — were white.

Today, Crown Heights is a much more mixed group of 134,819 residents, 2010 Census data show. Blacks now make up 72% of the population, with the number of Jews and newcomers growing.

At the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center, the priority is stopping black-on-black gun violence, director Amy Ellebogan said. “We have (hate) crimes happen,” she said. “But shootings – it’s unfortunately … accepted … We are trying to make it unacceptable.”

Crown Heights’ Jews are worried about increased secularism among their ranks, blaming pop culture and the void left by the death of Chabad-Lubavitch leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersoh in 1994.

“A lot of people are rebelling against their parents. Their parents are old school and they can’t adapt,” said Rabbi Chezzi Denebeim, 25, who runs a new synagogue on President St.

Right after the riots, residents worked hard to forge informal and institutional alliances among African-Americans, Caribbean-Americans and Jews. Many of those groups have faded.

“We served our purpose,” said Denice Muckle, a member of Mothers to Mothers, a black and Jewish moms support group that no longer meets. “The world has changed. People aren’t open to (being or acting) stupid anymore.”

Some groups are still around and can be called upon if conflicts arise.

“Once you make the peace, you have to keep the peace,” said Crown Heights Youth Collective director Richard Green. “Playing ball, doing rap, that’s peacemaking. Now we are keeping the peace.”

Other casual forms of unity have emerged. About a year ago, kosher wine bar Basil opened up. Hasidim, hipsters and black professionals sit side-by-side to devour Basil’s pizza, pasta and other bistro fare.

Yet old hostilities still exist.

“They don’t speak to us,” said Carol Morton, 67, a black woman who sells art in the area. “I don’t see no change. … They stick together. They don’t care about us.”

It swings both ways.

“We can’t break bread with them,” said Roz Malamud, 67, a Jewish woman who lives on Eastern Parkway. “We can’t learn from them. We are equal, but separate.”