Debski 1

Rebecca Debski
11-18-14
HIS 498C
Conflict between Two Repressed Peoples
On an afternoon in 1991, in the city of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, NY there was a car
crash that sparked a riot between two conflicting groups. There was a small caravan of cars
driving from the cemetery back into the city. The caravan was taking The Rabbi home from
visiting his deceased wife and brother. The caravan went through a red light, which caused some
oncoming traffic to almost hit the car. The main car in the caravan started losing control and ran
off the road onto the sidewalk and hit two children. Both children were Black immigrants from
the Caribbean; the young boy died and the girl was badly injured.1 The accident sparked the
African-American and Afro-Caribbean population to want to go after the Jewish people in the
caravan. The Jewish people claimed that the Black men assaulted them but the Black men
denied it. According to Cyril Josh Baker, in the Amsterdam News, Crown Heights saw a threeday riot erupt after a 7-year-old Guyanese boy, Gavin Cato, was accidentally struck and killed by
a car in a motorcade that was following the funeral for a Hasidic Rabbi.2 The Black
community was angered because when the police and paramedics arrived on the scene it was
believed that they helped the Jewish driver of the car before they helped Gavin Cato. The riots of

I put white and black into quotes to show that they are social constructs.
Cyril Josh Baker, On anniversary: Crown Heights revisited. Amsterdam News (August 21-August 27,
2008).
1
2

Debski 2

the Black community resulted in the stabbing of a Hasidic Jew named Yankel Rosenbaum who
was a twenty-nine year old student from Australia.3
The Crown Heights Riot in 1991 is only one event in a larger string of violent outburst in
the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, NY. The Black community at the time consisted of
African, American, and Caribbean born blacks who believed that their group was being
mistreated by The Hasidic Jews.4 This neighborhood has seen many tensions because of the
clashing cultures of the Black community and the Hasidic Jews. This has not been the only
violent flare up in this area. There has been a history of Black-Hasidic tensions since the
1970s.5 There was a Hasidic man that was beaten by a group of young Blacks in the summer
of 1986 and in March, 1989 a black teenager was said to have hurt a Hasidic women and her
child.6
Crown Height has a complicated history that has not been fully studied due to event
relating to the town occurring in contemporary history. By looking at the tension between the
Jewish and Black communities before and after 1991 historians can better understand why
these two groups have been fighting each other for so long. Some questions come up when
looking at this event: (1) why have most of the attacks that we know of been aimed at the Jewish
population? (2) Has there been intentional attacks toward the Black community by the Jewish
community? (3) Has the Black communitys story been minimized from this issue more than
the Jewish story? Although many of these questions cannot be answered yet, this essay will look

Judy Wilson, Crown Heights Riot Fact, Fiction, and Plenty of Blame. New Jersey Jewish News
(2006).
3

Ibid.

John T. McQuiston, Fatal Crash Starts Melee with Police in Brooklyn. The New York Times (August
20, 1991).
6
Ibid.
5

Debski 3

at Crown Heights as a city, how it has changed, and why the Black and Jewish communities
decided to call this place home. We will examine the two communities and how they talk about
the each other. We will also focus on why this car accident sparked such an emotional response
from the Black community. Considering the fact that this was an accident, not provoiced, car
crash, causes another question to be considered: why the death of the Gavin Cato by Yosif Lifsh,
sparked so much backlash by the Black community? Looking at the events before and after the
Crown Heights Riot of 1991will bring insight into why this event sparked such a radical
response. Finally, it is important to remember that former historical scholarship on the Crown
Heights Riots of 1991 needs to change because of the lack of research on the Black community
involved in the conflict.
Former Scholarship
Although there is a lot written on the Crown Heights Riots of 1991, it is unbalanced.
Most of the writers discussing social conflicts in Crown Heights have been people of Jewish
decent. Some of them are secular Jews, but they still find a deeper connection with the Hasidic
Jews of Crown Heights then the Black communities. Therefore, much of the writing is about
the Jewish experience in Crown Heights and the Riots of 1991. There may even be a Jewish bias
within this scholarship that, at times, blatantly ignores other similar instances related to Jewish
people discriminating against the Black community. Many of the current secondary sources
are coming from 2006 and talk about how there is low number of anti-Semitic sentiments in the
United States since this event, but this seems to be a false statement.7 Anti-Semitism has existed

Edward S. Shapiro, Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot. (Brandeis University
Press, Waltham, Massachusetts, 2006) 1.

Debski 4

for a long time throughout the world and continues to be prominent, but these authors argued that
there is less anti-Semitism in the United States compared to this 1991 event.
Jewish people have been persecuted since Babylonian times and used as slaves in
Ancient Egypt.8 In The Middle Ages, Jews were forced out of countries in Europe because of
anti-Semitic views. One of these countries was Spain. One of the most extreme cases was the
Holocaust during World War II. Meanwhile, the United States also had ideas of anti-Semitism,
but more considered Jews different from the White races in the way the United States viewed
Italians and Poles at about the same time. There may be less hatred towards Jewish populations
in our post nine-eleven years but in 1991 it appeared that anti-Semitism was alive and well
during these riots. This cannot be proven due to the fact that there have been recent news reports
in New York City talking about the race conflict between the Blacks and Jewish people in
Crown Heights today.
Many of the sources about the riot of 1991 only focus on the Hasidic Jewish population
in Crown Heights. More of the Jewish community was mentioned by name and seemed to voice
more of an opinion about the riots than the Black community. They discuss Menachem
Mandel Schneerson or The Grand Rabbi, Yosif Lifsh who was driving the car in the accident,
Yunkel Rosenbaum who was stabbed during the riots and his brother. That is four people from
the Jewish community mentioned compared to two people mentioned from the Black
community, the two most mentioned figures is Gavin Cato and Reverend Al Sharpton. Although
this allows the Jewish community in Crown Heights to be researched more closely, it also causes
the Black community to be neglected in research.

Exodus. 1.

Debski 5

There are several ideological undercurrents with the writings of this event. The story
leaves out the African-American and Afro-Caribbean perspective. This event occurred between
Black and Jewish communities in Brooklyn, but the Black community is seen as an abstract
or distant group of people compared to the Jewish community. Many of the sources, both
primary and secondary, only talk about the Black community as the youths who started the
riots and have no names of the Reverends that work within that community. The only name the
newspapers, articles, and books talk about in depth is Gavin Cato who was the young boy who
died in the car accident. The Black community does not tend to have a name or face to it; just
an abstract picture of who was protesting the car crash that killed young Cato. The Black youths
that were often found protesting were never asked why they were protesting nor why they felt
animosity towards the Jewish people living near them. However, there is one exception. Anna
Deavere Smith interviewed people in Crown Heights about the riots for her documentary play
Into the Fire. She asked Hasidic men and women who are older, and men and women from the
Black community from different ages and levels of education, about what they were doing at
the time and how they felt. She also asked about the cultural difference between the two groups.
Smith had two interviews with some Black youths who were there during the riots to tell their
story about what they witnessed. Scholars need to go back through the current sources and start
to build new primary documents by conducting interviews with African American and AfroCaribbean people who remember the conflict. This could help the dialogue of the Black
community to be brought to the forefront and compared to the Hasidic Jewish dialogue. The
conflict was seen as a bigger Jewish issue rather than a localized racial conflict. By reevaluating
what the Black and Jewish communities thought of each other before the car crash in 1991
could change the outlook of the scholarship.

Debski 6

If historians look at past events, between these two groups, through the Black
communitys perspective, scholars could find that the Black community may not have been
initiating the conflict. Instead, the Black community would see the conflict differently and
show a new story on why the riots in 1991 sparked such protest. It is hard not to have a large
interest in the Jewish community and their perspective, but it is important to understand that
there is a huge gap within the research about the Crown Heights Riots, because the Black
community has been pushed out of the events narrative. The Black community has been used
more as an abstract character in the event, despite being a main influence. This needs to change
because the African-American and Afro-Caribbean communities are just as important, or even
more important, to understanding why this event impacted both communities in each way.
More recently, most of the scholars that have written about this event have focused on
religion and race. According to Henry Goldschmidt, scholars of collective identity formation
have paid too little attention to religious identities, and have often overlooked the role of religion
in defining identities based on other-seemingly more empirical-criteria, for example, by
differences in class and gender9 Prior to focusing on religion and race, scholars conceded class
and gender to be over used in the historiography of the Crown Heights Riot of 1991, but since
2006 race and religion has been the main lens on this topic. The history of this event needs to
look at oppression and cultural constructs of race.
History of Crown Heights

Goldschmidt, 27.

Debski 7

In the 1920s, most of Brooklyn was becoming a predominantly White neighborhood,

most of the people where recent European immigrants who were mostly Jewish.10 Crown
Heights was a solid middle-class neighborhood, with a median family income of about $4,000 a
year in 1930.11 Although Crown Heights originally had neighborhoods of Irish, Italian, and
other White groups they decided to start moving out of the area after World War II and into the
suburbs because these families could afford it easier. This allowed the Jewish population in
Crown Heights to be the dominant group in the area.12 In the early 1950s, 50 to 60 percent of
this White population was Jewish in Crown Heights.13 By the 1970s, these demographics were
shifting again. There was a phenomenon called White flight where a majority of the
populations of New York City burrows started moving into suburbs outside of the city.14
According to Goldschmidt, many of the Jewish communities moved out of city areas to the
suburbs.15 Crown Heights is different because the Lubavitch Hasidim Jews decided to stay in
Crown Heights instead of move to the suburbs. In 1965, Hart-Cellar Immigration Reform Act
opened the United States to Caribbean immigrants, which caused an influx of Caribbean
immigrants to New York City and other city centers.16
In the 1990s, the demographics of Crown Heights shifted again. Only six to eight percent
of the population in Crown Heights was Jewish at the time of the Riots in 1991.17 Whereas,
sixty-five percent of the population were immigrants from the Caribbean and fifteen percent of

10

Ibid, 90.
Ibid.
12
Ibid, 91
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid, 5.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid, 14.
17
Ibid, 6.
11

Debski 8

the population was African-American.18 There were also some Latino, Asian and non-Hasidic
Jews living in Crown Heights along with a small population of Black Orthodox Jews and people
from the former Soviet Union.19 The population went from predominantly White to
predominantly Black within twenty to thirty years.
Since there were some prior incidents of violence between the Jewish and the Black
communities, New York City pushed to elect David Dinkins was the first African-American
mayor of New York City in hop[es that] he could unite a divided city.20 This caused new
issues between the Jewish and the Black communities. The Hasidic community believed that
David Dickins was protecting the Black community only and never helped the Hasidic
community. For the Black community, they had lost a heated political redistricting fight that
they believed gave the Jewish community better law-enforcement protection, and many felt they
suffered inferior treatment by the police and when they sought housing.21 Since the Black
community felt like they had lost control of their community, tension started to form between the
two groups. Even though there was an African-American mayor for New York City the Black
community continued to feel marginalized. This resulted in several riots and acts of violence
prior to the riots of 1991. Some examples of this violence were the 1986 murder of Michel
Griffith in Queens and the murder of Yusuf in Hawkins, Brooklyn.22 Following the riots in
Crown Heights, there was the 1992 Los Angeles Riots that started because of the police beating
of Rodney King who was a black man.23

18

Ibid.
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Okenowo, 2.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
19

Debski 9

Each group has a different understanding of why there are conflicts between the Black
and Jewish communities in Crown Heights. Both groups do consider socioeconomic class as
a factor of why they both clash with each other.24 In the meantime, community leaders or
elected officials [believe it is] a matter of culture.25 The conflict between these two
communities can only be explained by looked at each group equally and in depth to understand
how they think about each other.
The Hasidic Jews
The Jewish people that stayed in Crown Heights did so because of their beloved Rabbi.
He was so beloved that his community called him The Rabbi and no other rabbi before, or
after, has been named like this. He was the all-knowing influence of the Hasidic Jews that lived
there under his leadership. His name was Menachem Mandel Schneerson. He led the Crown
Heights community from 1951 until he died on June 12, 1994. He was credited with rebuilding
the Jewish community after the Holocaust. His authority within the community was virtually
unquestioned.26 Since he was so respected, his entire Labavitch community ended up staying in
Crown Heights despite the conflicts with the Black community.
According to Henry Goldschmidt, Jewishness is often perceived-by Jews and others-as
an ambiguous identity that does not quite fit the available categories of identity formation.27
The Hasidic Jews are a branch of Orthodox Judaism and are considered to be devout and follow
the Torah more literally. Hasidic Jews have a distinct style of dress that separates them from the
rest of the population. Anna Deveare Smith mentions in the introduction of the plays book, that
24

Goldschmidt, 11.
Ibid.
26
Ibid, 15.
27
Ibid, 24.
25

Debski 10

the Lubavitchers-members of an Orthodox Jewish sect that fled the Nazi genocide of Jews in
Europe during World War II are particularly vulnerable to anti-Jewish Stereotyping because of
their religious style of dress and insular community.28 The women in this community usually
keep their hair short, because when you go to the mikvah [bath]its better if its short because
of []the preparation thats involved and that you have to go under the water. The hair has a
tendency to float and you have to be completely submerged including your hair.29 The women
also wear modest clothing that covers most of their skin. The men all grow beards and curly
sideburns but keep the back of their hair short. Some of the other traditions that this community
fallows is that they cant turn off electrical []on Shabbas the only exception is if a child
under three turns something on or turns something off [where] its not considered against the
Torah30 Some other traditions of Jewish law, that this community follows are kosher laws.
Kosher is a type of food preparation that is mentioned on the Jewish Bible. It is specifically a
way that all food should be prepared for a practicing Jewish community eat. Most of the Kosher
laws talks about how to slaughter animals for food and how to prepare it along with being
blessed by a rabbi in the community. There are many different traditions that this community
adheres to, but these are some that are commonly mentioned that create differences between the
two groups.
The Labavitchers consider themselves a special type of Jew, because many of the Jewish
communities have changed and become secular or more Americanized. The Labavitchers only
consider strict Orthodox Jews to be part of their Jewish circle of blessed people. They do not
consider Blacks who are practicing the Jewish faith as Jewish because they do not believe that
28

Anna Deavere Smith, forward by Cornel West, Fires in the Mirror (New York, Bantam Doubledat Dell
Publishing Group) Xliv.
29
Ibid, 23-24.
30
Ibid, 7.

Debski 11

they are practicing the correct way.31 In Henry Goldschmidts book he mentions how the
Labavitchers think about different Christian religions. According to the Labavitchers:
The cast of Israelites in the Americas includes countless communities that have
claimed[], a privileged tie to the chosen people of the scripture. Puritan colonists and
Mormon pioneers, orthodox Jews and Pentecostal Christians, the White supremacist
Christian Identity movement and Black supremacists Nation of Islam, Jamaican
Rastafarians and Haitian Rara Musicians these diverse communities, and many others,
have used the figure of Israel to define both race and religion.32
This quote talks about different Christian religions and how they are based off of Judaism are
using The Bible to advance their race and religion. This is a negative outlook on other Christian
religions by the Labavitchers. One reasons for this negative outlook on other religions is that
they do not follow Jewish law. Roz Malamud, a sixty-seven year old Jewish woman, mentions to
a reporter, we cant break bread with them[]We cant learn from them. We are equal but
separate.33
The Labavitchers say that the conflict is mostly caused by anti-Semitism from the
Black community, and that they are frequent victims of Black street crime.34 The Jewish
community in Crown Heights also believed that they were being victimized[]by the legal
system, when the Jewish community heard the result of the trial of Lemrick Nelson, Jr., who
was accused of killing Yunkel Rosenbaum.35 According to the Lubavitch leaders, they have
often worked to secure subsidies and services for Jews in Crown Heights - and, to lesser extent,
31

Goldschmidt, 25.
Ibid.
33
Okenowo, 4.
34
Smith, Xliv.
35
Ibid, Xlv.
32

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for the community as a whole.36 The main issue is that state subsidies normally are given to the
White community, so it should not be a surprising phenomenon in New York City or the
United States as a whole.37 The Jewish community believes that they are the leading group
when it comes to creating services available for the community of Crown Heights, because
Hasidim consistently vote in higher percentages then [the Black community].38 Although the
Jewish community claims to have opened up opportunities to all of the community, the Jews of
Crown Heights still feel like they are pick[ed] as the scapegoat[s] of society.39 A Labavitch
woman believes that Only Jews listen, only Jews take Blacks seriously, only Jews view Blacks
as full human beings that you should address in their rage and,]people dont seem to notice
that.40 She also mentions that Blacks never seem to be listened to in dominant culture, and
that is how the Jewish community sees the Black community [sic.]41 The Jews see the Black
community as equals of repression and children of good, but also as beneath them because the
Jews need to help the Blacks speak up for themselves.
The Black Community
The Black community in Crown Heights cannot be generalized as having one culture.
The Black community consists of different Caribbean cultures along with African Americans.
A large amount of the Black community, many of them Caribbean immigrants without United
States Citizenship from Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, and other countries, face
discrimination both on the basis of their color and their national origin.42 Many of the people in
36

Goldschmidt, 105.
Ibid, 107.
38
Ibid, 108.
39
Smith, 50.
40
Ibid, 50-51.
41
Ibid, 51.
42
Ibid, Xliii-Xliv.
37

Debski 13

the Black community believe that the conflict between them and the Jews because of race
and the difference between Black and White.43 For the African American community,
race[]was synonymous with community.44 Many African American communities stick
together in the United States, and create pockets in cities and towns that only have African
American populations or at least a majority of African Americans. Angela Davis mentions that
for African American people, race is their community and is so engrained into their minds that
if anybody in the race come under attack then [they] had to be there to support that person, to
support the race.45 Davis also says that the word race needs to be questioned, because if the
word does not change then the cycle of genocidal violence will end up continuing.46 The idea
that race shows a group what their community consists of, causes the Black population in
Crown Heights to be reluctant and hateful to the Labvitchers. According to the Black leaders
of the community, they accuse the Labvitchers of enjoy[ing] preferential treatment in the
community from police and other city agencies47 During the riots of 1991, the police were said
to have beat[en] up Black reporters and arrested between 150-300 young Blacks as a
preventive measure48 There are many issues that cause the Black community to use the
Jewish population as a scapegoat for different issues in the community.
Politically, anti-Semitism has become common among the Black leaders of the
community. One of the organizations that has been growing on the ideas of anti-Semitism is the
Anti-Defamation League who said that Blacks are more likely to have anti-Semitic views than

43

Goldschmidt, 10.
Smith, 27.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid, 31.
47
Ibid, Xliv.
48
Ibid, Xlv.
44

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Whites.49 Anti-Semitism was gathering steam as a loud and increasingly mainstream black
movement that caused a simple car crash to be regarded as an attack on all the Blacks of
Crown Heights.50
There are several different images that come to the Black communities mind when
asked about Jewish people. One of these images is that Jewish people are very wealthy, and that
causes them to have an increased sense of privilege in Crown Heights.51 Reverend Al Sharpton
talks about Jews as diamond dealers and lamented the apartheid nature of the private Hasidic
ambulance.52 Reverend Al Sharpton also talked about [Slavery, the middle passage, and the
raping of Black women in the United States as] a crime of tremendous proportion. In fact, no
crime in the history of humanity has before or since equaled that crime.53 He continues to talk
about how the Holocaust was not even as close to as horrible a crime to what the Black
Americans went through during the middle passage and years of slavery.54 Although the
Holocaust was horrible, it still does not compare to slavery which Blacks had to endure for
over three hundred years which killed two hundred and fifty million in the middle passage
coming from Africa to America.55 The Jews lost significantly less and only had to deal with the
Holocaust for about five to six years.56 Reverend Sharpton also mentions that the Black man [in
America] has no knowledge of [identity]; hes an amnesia victim. He has lost knowledge of
himself and hes living a beast life.57 This all shows how the Black community in Crown
Heights has been conditioned to think about the Jewish community as a threat to their freedom,
49

Gourevitch, 30.
Ibid.
51
Goldschmidt, 104.
52
Okenowo, 2.
53
Smith, 54.
54
Ibid.
55
Ibid, 54-55.
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid, 56.
50

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and that even though they are considered a repressed identity, Blacks still have it harder than
Jews. Another sign of anti-Semitism being engrained into the Black community is when
Reverend Sharpton echoes a message by Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan showed his congregation
that the Blacks are the chosen people of God and that the Jews have just stolen the title of the
chosen people from the Blacks of Africa.58
The Black community in Crown Heights focus on the Jewish population more than
their own community, and seems to lose sight of what the community needs as a whole and as
individuals. Most of the newspapers and books that have a voice from the Black community
have the Black community talking about the Jews in the area instead of what types of culture
the different peoples in the community have. Instead of focusing on not having an identity, they
should focus on creating an identity for themselves. As a result there is only so much research
about the Black community in Crown Heights. The research leads to characterizing this
community as Anti-Semitic, religious, and in a lower economic class then the Jewish people. it
ends up that this community is characterized by mostly talking about the Jewish community
instead of the social issues within the Black community.
Crown Heights 1991
The police station was filled with people in uniforms. The police were outside, in the
parking lots and along the streets and it was plain to see vehicles a few blocks away in a
destroyed state. According to Phillip Gourevitch, In[]the center of the Hasidic community[...]
hundreds of cops decked out with riot helmets and plexiglass body shields.59 A Labvitcher

58
59

Ibid, 57-58.
Philip Gourevitch, The Crown Heights Riot & Its Aftermath, Commentary, Jan 1993, 29.

Debski 16

woman said, The city[...]was failing protect [us Jews.]60 Rocks and bottles were being thrown
by Black rioters at the Hasidim.61 Earlier in the riots the police discovered the accident of the
Hasidic station wagon, [driven by] Yosef Lifsh and the large mob of Black youths yelling
and hurting the cars Hasidic passengers.62 The police decided they needed to remove the
object of the crowds anger, [and] directed the crew [of the Hasidic ambulance] to take away
Lifsh and his passengers.63 It is unclear which ambulance arrived at the scene first because there
are claims from the Jewish community that the city ambulance was there first to help Cato, and
then the private Hasidic ambulance arrived second to remove the Jews in the car.64 On the other
hand, the Black community believed that the Hasidic ambulance arrived first, and refused to
help the children. There is no clear answer on what happened during the most important
moments of the incident. The stories of the Jewish and Black communities are dramatically
opposed.65
In response to this car crash and misunderstanding of the story, a group of Black youths
started to run through town smashing cars and throwing rocks and bottles at passers-by and
homes.66 The group found Yankel Rosenbaum, who was only twenty-nine and was an exchange
student from Australia, was beaten and stabbed by attackers who shouted Get the Jews and
Kill the Jews before fleeing as police arrived on the scene.67 Lemrick Nelson, Jr. was the
person that was charged with stabbing Yankel Rosenbaum and [he was shown Nelson] and

60

Gourevitch, 29.
Ibid.
62
Ibid, 30.
63
Ibid
64
Ibid.
65
Smith, Xliii.
66
Gourevitch, 31.
67
Ibid.
61

Debski 17

identified Nelson as his attacker.68 The police found the bloody knife in Nelsons pockets, and it
tested positive for Rosenbaums DNA. Nelson was arrested and confessed to stabbing
Rosenbaum but was never punished for the crime.69 There were three-day[s of] riots [that were]
ignited by the accidental death of a Gavin Cato and the stabbing of Yankel Rosenbaum.70
According to the Jewish witnesses, there were several Black youth out on the streets at
the time of the accident drinking beer and talking to friends.71 The driver of the car went through
an intersection, and was hit by another car which caused the car to crash into the sidewalk.72 The
driver of the car tried to help the child and, he tried to physically lift the car from the child.73
The only problem was that the Blacks were already attacking the driver, causing more injury.74
Rabbi Joseph Spielmant believed that a group of young Blacks about twenty of them strong
which was being egged on by a Black male approximately forty years old and balding, telling
them, kill all Jews look what they did to the kid, kill all Jews.75 Rabbi Joseph Spielmant was
one of the main witnesses to the crash but his accounts are one sided.
There were different reactions to the riots. At Catos funeral a representative from the
Hasidic Jewish community went to show sympathy, and witnessed:
verbal acrimony, not only were there cries of, Kill the Jews or, Kill the Jew,[]
there were cries of Hitler didnt finish the job. [or] Thrown them back into the ovens
again. To hear [this] in Crown Heights and Hitler was no lover of Blacks[so to hear
this] from Black?[...]I cannot fathom.76

68

Ibid.
Ibid.
70
Okenowo, 2.
71
Smith, 67.
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid, 68.
74
Ibid.
75
Ibid, 70-71.
76
Ibid, 86.
69

Debski 18

He believe that hatred was so deep seated and the hatred [knew] no boundaries [and the]
response of the Lubvitcher community was relatively passive.77 Rosenbaums brother, Norman,
made a speech during some of the rioting and said:
One person out of twenty gutless individuals who attacked my brother has been arrested.
I for one am not convinced that it is beyond the ability of the New York police to arrest
others. Let me tell you, Mayor Dickins, let me tell you, Commissioner Brown: Im here,
Im not going home, until there is justice.78
Rosenbaums brother was angry that the man who killed his brother was acquitted of all crimes
even though he admitted to killing Rosenbaum. These are not the only voices of the Jewish
community that talked about their feelings and experience of the riots but these are significant
voices that have contrasting stories from the Black community.
The Black community has a completely different understanding of what happened
during the Crown Heights Riot. The Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam talks about his views of
the Grand Rabbe of the Jewish community. He mentioned that the Grand Rabbe was worried
about a threat on his life from the Satmars.79 This caused the Rabbe to charge though town
every time he went somewhere.80 The reverend mentions that [he] us[es] the police and
taxpayers money[to] be whisked!81 The Rabbi goes to the cemetery once a week to visit his
dead wife and the Cadillac was driving through town at seventy miles per hour82 One time, on
the way back the police car with its siren, had gone over a main intersection with the light
[green]. The [Rabbis] Cadillac had passed when the light [turned yellow] and nobody expected

77

Ibid, 86-87.
Ibid, 96.
79
Ibid, 74.
80
Ibid.
81
Ibid, 75.
82
Ibid, 76.
78

Debski 19

the[]station wagon to deliberately go through the red light.83 The cars started going through
the intersection but the Cadillac decided to run the red light, which caused one of the other cars
to hit the Cadillac. The reverend believed that the Jews in the car were too worried about
themselves to possibly help the children that were hit.84 Even the Jewish ambulance was
concerned about the people in the van while some boy lay dead on the street. 85 The people on
the streets became angered and it was believed they had every right to be.
A young Black man saw some of the incident. He remembered seeing the young girl
pushing the boy on a bike, but the boy was still playing around. The witness saw the Jewish man
run the red light.86 The young man pulled the Jewish man out of the car and could smell alcohol
on him. He told the others around him to not let the man leave because of the alcohol.87 He was
accused by the Jews of beating them up, which caused them to have stitches88 In an interview
this young man said, you dont come out of an accident like that unmarked, without a scratch.
The most he got from us was slapped by a little kid.89 Later on this young man was arrested. He
mentioned that he told the police that the man was drunk, but Black peoples words do not
mean anything to the police. He realized that for Black man, aint no justice,[]aint never
gonna be no justice [sic].90 Another boy talked about how he knew the boy that was accused of
stabbing Rosenblum, and mentioned that boys in Crown Heights either become bad boys,
athletes, or DJs.91 He didnt believe that the boy could have stabbed Rosenblum because the

83

Ibid, 76.
Ibid, 77.
85
Ibid.
86
Ibid, 79-80.
87
Ibid, 80.
88
Ibid.
89
Ibid, 81.
90
Ibid, 83-84.
91
Ibid, 102.
84

Debski 20

boy was an athlete and athletes only think about sports, not stabbing people in the street.92 These
accounts from Black citizens from Crown Heights are different from the accounts from the
Jewish citizens.
Crown Heights has a complicated history with clashing ethnic groups; the more one
researches this event the more questions they will have. The newspapers and news stations
recordings along with every single source that was used and even missed in this paper focused on
one side or the other. There is no clear understanding of what sparked the Crown Heights Riots
of 1991. One thing is clear; there are still many issues between the Black and Jewish
communities in Crown Heights. Both of the groups grew out of oppression throughout a long
period of world history. There is more research on this event is being completed. There is a large
part of this event that has been missed in the scholarship. This includes the reason for the riots
starting and the Black communitys voice being erased from the accounts of the riots.
Significant research will need to be done to continue to understand this community along with
giving another decade of distance to understand the outcome of this event.

92

Ibid, 100-101.