Friday, October 27, 2023
Brooklyn’s Orthodox Community Told to Stay Inside During Saturday Pro-Palestine Rally: ’Jews Should Definitely Avoid the Area’
Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, NY are being advised to avoid a busy stretch of the Crown Heights neighborhood that will be the site of a Palestine liberation march Saturday afternoon, according to a news site affiliated with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
"Jews should definitely avoid the area," an anonymous "security source" said. "There's no intel at this time in which direction the protest will head. Locals should definitely stay away from Eastern Parkway in that area," the source added.
The source appeared to be referring to an event titled "Flood Brooklyn For Gaza," which is organized by the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime.
The organization held a similar demonstration in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn last Saturday, where at least one Orthodox Jewish group attended to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. The event remained mostly peaceful, although 19 people were arrested during clashes with police, according to the New York Times.
The protest is set to begin at 3 p.m. at the Brooklyn Museum, which is located about a mile away from the world headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, in one of the most densely populated Orthodox Jewish communities in the U.S.
The neighborhood is a sensitive area for some Jewish New Yorkers, as it was the site of the infamous Crown Heights Riots that took place about 30 years ago.
In 1991, a Chabad motorcade struck and killed a 7-year-old Guyanese immigrant, prompting several days of destruction and looting against Jewish businesses in the neighborhood and at least one killing.
Crown Heights continues to be a hub for Hasidic Jews, who make up about a quarter of the neighborhood's population, according to the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative.
Local rabbis said they had already spoken with officials from the NYPD, who had assured them that there would be an increased police presence in the area on Saturday, the Jewish Shabbat.
A rabbi from the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council said he had been briefed by the NYPD that organizers planned to walk near the house of Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in nearby Park Slope.
Pro-Palestine activists have condemned Schumer for failing to call for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Thousands of protesters, including several descendants of Holocaust survivors, attended a rally outside the senator's home last Friday. Fifty-seven people, including two New York State assembly members, were arrested for blocking traffic.
Tensions between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups have reached a boiling point in the wake of Hamas' surprise terrorist attack on Israel on October 7.
Last week, two men were charged with multiple hate crimes after they allegedly shouted anti-Muslim slurs while attacking three others, per the Times.
On Wednesday, videos showed Jewish students sheltering inside the Cooper Union library as pro-Palestinian protesters allegedly shouted and banged on the walls from the other side.
The Israel-Palestine conflict has so far claimed the lives of more than 1,400 Israelis, according to the Israeli government, and 7,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
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