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| Rabbi Eli Cohen at the #OneCrownHeights festival in Crown Heights (JTA) |
It is no secret that tensions between black and Jewish
residents have existed there for quite some time. Tensions that were exacerbated back in 1991 when
an Orthodox Jewish student from Australia by the name of Yankel Rosenbaum was murdered by
a couple of black youths. This happened during riots following an accident caused by a motorcade carrying the
Lubavitcher Rebbe. One of the cars accidentally struck two children where one subsequently died
and the other was severely injured.
Understandably, there were a lot of things said in the heat of anger
by both sides that perhaps they might wish they could take back.
There is little doubt in my mind that this event has strongly
contributed to the atmosphere of animosity that still exists at some level
there. By both sides.
One might have thought that any chance of rapport between
the two communities have long ago gone up in smoke. But one would be wrong. While it is
true that tensions do exist to some extent, the truth is that there is a lot of good will between many of the
Orthodox Jews that live there (Lubavitch) and many of its black residents. As Malka
Groden, a Chabad resident of the neighborhood described d in her New York Post article:
Like most buildings here, ours is occupied by black and Jewish occupants.
Families are, in general, neighborly and respectful to one another, and some have even become close. Last summer, tragedy struck a black family in our building when their son was murdered in an altercation at a bodega a few blocks away; Jewish families organized a meal train so that the grieving mother and children wouldn’t have to worry about dinner for a few weeks...
A friend who grew up a few blocks away from where I live enjoyed a warm relationship with her next-door neighbor, an older single black woman. She recalls her mother sending the kids over with fresh challah and chicken before Shabbat, her neighbor attending their childhood gymnastics performances and bat mitzvahs, and gift exchanges during the holidays…
In the last few years, three families in the neighborhood’s Chabad community have adopted nonwhite children and written publicly about it. I’m one of those adoptive mothers, and I’ve spoken to Jewish women about my experience, the foster-care crisis and the need to rid ourselves of bias as we raise the next generation of Jewish children. The young women I speak to, mostly under 40, are responsive to this message.
It doesn’t help matters when a so called journalist knocks
out a ‘documentary’ video showing black people harboring negative stereotypes about
us as an ‘explanation’ of why we are attacked. That combined with the preexisting animosity on
both sides against each other surely adds fuel to a fire that should be put out instead. As I
said in a previous post, I do not believe for a moment that black animosity
against us is innate. It is learned and exacerbated by videos like this.
As this article demonstrates, Jews and blacks can – and do
get along. Quite nicely in fact given the chance.
Malka Groden is right. The media rarely focuses on the positive.
It focuses o the negative which contribute to the problem rather than solving
it. Not that I necessarily blame them. Conflict sells newspapers (both print and
electronic). Peaceful relations are boring - and don’t. That doesn’t make it
right. It just makes it real.
I for one am happy to see a positive story like this in a mainstream
media publication. Not that it never happens. But it is rare – the exception rather
than the rule. Positive interactions like those described here have matched my
won experience right here in my own neighborhood in Chicago. The black families
that lived here were some of the nicest and friendliest people in the neighborhood.
They would make sure to greet me and say hello as they passed me in the street…
as I did to them. One black mother on the block was the first one to express
condolences to me when I lost my grandson, Reuven, to cancer a few years ago.
It meant a lot to me and I will never forget it.
There is no reason that we all can’t get along with each
other. And live in peace and harmony as good neighbors and friends. It’s
happening in Crown Heights. And that should be the model for all communities.
Even if there are more than a few occasional violent attacks against us by some
black antisemites, that should not be seen as the rule but the exception. And the
more we make it our mission to behave the way Malka Groden does in our
interactions with non Jews of any color, the rarer those antisemitic attacks
will become.
