For Chabad misfits, a place to call home

Published on February 26, 2013

On a freezing Friday night in Brooklyn, a group of 18 Crown Heights residents scurry through the crowds of Jews leaving synagogue and make their way to a second-story apartment on Rogers Avenue for Shabbat dinner.

Prosecutors drop charges in Brooklyn sex abuse case

Published on June 27, 2012

Prosecutors dropped all charges against a group of men who were accused of sexually abusing a young Brooklyn haredi Orthodox woman for eight years.

Can we afford kosher lettuce?

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on January 25, 2012

On a Monday morning in November, two men sat on the edge of a field in Carpinteria, 85 miles north of Los Angeles. The older one, middle-aged, wiry and bareheaded, had the face of someone who has served in the military, worked in agriculture or, in his case, both. Alongside him was a younger man who wore a black kippah and looked, from his complexion, like he spends his days indoors.

Chabad renews push to evict Crown Heights shul’s leaders

Published on September 28, 2011

Chabad-Lubavitch leaders have renewed their push to evict the congregational leaders of the Chasidic movement’s main Brooklyn synagogue.

Al Sharpton: I made ‘mistakes’ during Crown Heights riots

Published on August 22, 2011

Rev. Al Sharpton says he made "mistakes" during the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago.

Opinion: Sharpton and the riots 20 years later

Published on August 22, 2011

On Sept. 17, 1991, almost a month after the tragic car accident that set off the Crown Heights Riots, Rev. Al Sharpton went to Israel to serve the driver of the car, Yosef Lifsh, with a wrongful death lawsuit.

Yankel Rosenbaum’s brother: Sharpton shouldn’t be on shul’s Crown Hts. panel

Published on August 18, 2011

The brother of Yankel Rosenbaum, the visiting Jewish scholar murdered in the 1991 Crown Heights riots, is decrying the participation of the Rev. Al Sharpton in a synagogue's panel discussion on the event's 20th anniversary.

America’s Pogrom

Published on August 12, 2011

It was tense conversation. The editor at NPR (clearly Jewish) was defending the reporting about violence in Brooklyn. Twenty years ago black mobs had taken to the streets after a car accident that took the life of a black child. Jews huddled in their homes in fear. Cars were torched, Jews beaten, Norman Rosenbaum, a Jewish student from Australia lay dead, killed by the mob. Police were held back by an incompetent mayor. The media whose job was to report the facts were creating a fantasy, claiming, “there are conflicts between blacks and Jews. Tensions are high as ethnic groups clash.” I told the editor she had the story wrong. There were no attacks by Jews, it was a one way battle. Finally in exasperation I yelled at her, “Jews are dying and you are lying.”