Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot

by Edward S. Shapiro

On the afternoon of August 19, 1991, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Lubavitch Hasidic movement headquartered in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, visited the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens to pray at the grave of his predecessor. A police car from the 71st Precinct accompanied him. On their return, they were joined by a station wagon containing four young members of the Lubavitch community, who had arrived earlier at the cemetery to prepare for Schneerson's arrival. Traveling west, the procession reached Utica Avenue. Gavin Cato, the seven-year-old son of Guyanese immigrants, was on the sidewalk near his apartment on President Street, repairing his bicycle chain. His seven-year-old cousin Angela was playing nearby. The police car and Schneerson's automobile crossed Utica on a green light and proceeded along President Street at a normal speed. But the third car had fallen behind. Not wishing to lose sight of Schneerson's car, it either crossed Utica on a yellow light or ran a red light--and collided with a car moving north on Utica. The station wagon veered onto the sidewalk on President Street, knocking over a 600-pound stone pillar from a building and striking both Gavin and Angela Cato, pinning them beneath the car. Angela survived; Gavin did not. Gavin Cato's death set off three days of riots. Yankel Rosenbaum, an Australian Orthodox Jew doing research in New York City for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Melbourne, was stabbed to death a few blocks away by a group of young black men. Cato's and Rosenbaum's deaths became heated symbols in a political and cultural struggle that pitted not just Hasidic Jews against black residents of Crown Heights, but also black radicals against the black-dominated Brooklyn political establishment; the black mayor and his black police commissioner against the largely white police force; the United States Department of Justice against New York politicians; and the leadership of Manhattan-based Jewish organizations against Jews from the outer boroughs. The riot strained race relations in the city, led some to question the viability of urban liberalism and the black-Jewish political entente, raised concerns about the extent of black antisemitism, and led the federal judiciary to broaden the scope of federal civil rights legislation to include Jews.

Genres: Jewish, Race

282 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2006

About the author

Edward S. Shapiro is Emeritus Professor of History, Seton Hall University (South Orange, NJ).

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to read this book, but it upset me so much that I had to give up about a quarter in.

It's not that Shapiro's claims about the antisemitism of the 1991 riot are at all invalid; rather, it's that he discredits himself by approaching such a complex and tragic situation with all the subtlety of a Grand Marquis station wagon plowing into a couple of kids. While he does usually acknowledge that there is another side and outlines its position, in my view he is clearly and hopelessly biased, stating but minimizing the significance of mistakes by the Jewish leadership, and completely writing off all concerns of a contingent he characterizes as "the black radicals." It seemed to me that Shapiro did not make a sincere attempt to understand and present the motivations of those he does not agree with, which is a problem because that's half the story here. While this is understandable -- there was some very bad acting, including murderous mob violence and astoundingly antisemitic rhetoric by black leaders and community members -- it is ultimately not helpful. Shapiro seemed to dismiss the concerns of black Crown Heights denizens; for instance, he scoffs at black accusations of institutional racism when ongoing negligence at Kings County Hospital only received serious scrutiny once Yankel Rosenbaum died there, as if this is not a legitimate reason for community anger. The fact is, there are some pretty significant differences between the Nazis and the black residents of Crown Heights, and those differences cannot really be explored when one is too invested in highlighting the similarities between these groups.

It also seemed sloppy and made claims that were not backed up. In a few places, Shapiro referred to the suicide of an elderly Holocaust survivor as being caused by the riots, but where he discusses that incident in more depth, he states it's not known for sure if the riots played a role. There were a lot of things like that in this book. I'm really disappointed, because I have a lot of personal interest in this subject. I moved to Crown Heights fairly recently, and when I walk to the train I get to pass by a storefront playing Louis Farrakhan's loud speeches, sometimes regarding his opinions on Jews. I'm pretty interested in black antisemitism, and was hoping this book would inform me about the 1991 incidents, of which I'm fairly ignorant (I was twelve at that time, and lived in California). Sadly, it did not. I must say here that Edward Shapiro is no Douglas Brinkley, and I really missed the Katrina author's far more even-handed approach.

Maybe I'm asking too much of a book from the Brandeis Series in American Jewish HIstory, Culture, and Life to take an evenhanded view of this terrible episode, but I don't think so. I believe writing about such charged and upsetting topics demands a special talent for empathy and the exploration of complexity, and I felt Shapiro was not up to task. This book seemed pitched towards people who already decided to characterize the riot as being a pogrom of sorts, and didn't seem nearly as interested in exploring why this happened as it did in blaming those who attacked Jews. I certainly am NOT asking for an apology or excuse for black antisemitism, but I do want more satisfying explanations for what that's about, and of how such awful events came to pass. In order to provide that, though, I think the author would have had to listen more objectively to what other groups were experiencing, and it seemed he did not want to do that.

Okay, so that's what I thought of this book. I hope no one throws bottles at me.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best book on the topic. Highly recommend

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Aug. 1991. A black child dies in a freak accident by the Rebbe’s motorcade, three days of mayhem ensue in which an orthodox man is killed—the first anti-Semitic pogrom (or insurrection) in American history. What follows is a kaleidoscope of NYC madness: conspiracy theories, racial rabblerousing, conclusion-jumping, political drama, police incompetence and moral hyperbole. This is the first full-length inspection of the riot and its aftermath. We find tensions between African-Americans and Caribbean, tactless Hasids and secular Jews. We hear the rhetorical cries of Jews (Kristallnacht! Arabs!), race-baiters (apartheid! plantation!), anti-Semites (bloodsuckers! Hitler was right! diamond merchants!) and racists (welfare crooks! uneducated!). Rebbe Schneerson and Al Sharpton come off looking terrible, as do liberal do-gooders trying to heal “the rift” from Manhattan by any cheesy means necessary. Liars are everywhere and nobody wins; blacks and Jews behaving badly.

[Foxglove · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful resource for a paper and I reread it today on the train.