An Uneasy
Cairn

Blacks and Orthodox Jews
in Crown Heights lashed out
at the media and outsiders,
not at each other.

DANIEL SCHIFRIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

rown Heights — Although
residents of Crown Heights had just
weathered one of New York's worst win-
ter storms in decades, few of the black
or Chasidic residents of this Brooklyn
neighborhood felt like clear skies were
ahead for them.
But it wasn't fear or loathing of their
neighbors that made them wary. It was
instead anger and weariness directed
at the media, at politicians, and hot-
heads from outside the area who had
made Crown Heights into a symbol of
racial hatred and intolerance they feel
misrepresents their neighborhood.
"Look around here. What do you see'
said an elderly Chasidic man as he ges-
tured to the bustling early morning
Kingston Street, a main thoroughfare
in Crown Heights. "I have lived here
for 30 years. Do you see tension and
problems? No. Neighbors get along

here." The riots last A visitor to
year, in the wake of the Crown Heights
accidental death of 7- notices indif-
year-old Gavin Cato,
were real enough, he ference rather
continued, but Crown than hostility
Heights is not a war between
zone.
blacks and
"The New York Jews.
Imes has nothing else
to do?" the man asked
as he wandered into a fruit stand for
his morning shopping.
Over a three-day period last week, Or-
thodox Jews, some 20,000 followers of
the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem
Mendel Schneerson, and 100,000
Caribbean-born blacks and black Amer-
icans did appear to get along relatively
well. Residents shopping and interact-
ing with each other routinely opened
doors for each other, walked with ease