Henry Goldschmidt discusses the segregation, tension, and conflict between African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans and Lubavitch Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. He goes into the ongoing tension between the two groups that sometimes result in violence and later revenge. It’s important to understand the background of this conflict and how these two groups came to be where they are. “White flight” of white residents in East New York in the early 1960s, deliberately encouraged by the realtors and bankers, switched the demographics of neighborhoods like Crown Heights to be a primarily black neighborhood. The Lubavitch Hasidic Jews were a group that decided to stay during this transition and this resulted in an almost segregated community within this neighborhood.
Crown Heights consists of three primary groups. Lubavitch Hasidic Jews make up 6 to 8% of the community and up to 20% of the community in south Crown Heights where most of them live. Caribbean immigrants make up 65% of the population and African Americans make up 15% of the population. The Hasidic Jews stand out in this community as a primarily white community in this predominately black neighborhood. The difference that black residents see in the Jewish residents is primarily their race. The difference that Hasidic Jews see in black residents and everyone else is based on their religion. Hasidic Jews in this neighborhood segregate themselves from non-jews or Gentiles. This difference in religion is more a difference in lineage due to the Jewish belief in their descent from the ancient Israelites. Their religion is mostly exclusive to those who were born into it and in this neighborhood it leads to conflict due to the segregation. Both sides of this conflict fail to cooperate and come to terms with their true differences and only rely on the prejudiced perception of each other.
