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fter three violent attacks on Orthodox Jews over two weeks, residents of Crown Heights are feeling jittery.

“I’ve received numerous calls from people who are scared to go outside,” says Yaacov Behrman, founder of the Jewish Future Alliance, a neighborhood group, and member of Community Board 9. “Bochurim are asking whether it’s safe to walk to their dorms.”

According to Mica Soffer, publisher of Lubavitch community news site COLive, the attacks are especially troublesome because they’re occurring in the center of the neighborhood, where people are present at all hours. “All of this is very frightening,” she says. “Everyone is anxious.”

In the first attack on April 14, a 40-year-old victim was assaulted by a group of African-Americans on the block of 770 Eastern Parkway. The victim was taken to the hospital with a black eye and broken ribs. Police have yet to find the assailants.

A week later on April 21, 52-year-old Menachem Moskowitz was walking home from shul on Shabbos when he was violently attacked after saying hello to a stranger. The man tried to strangle Moskowitz while shouting anti-Semitic slurs. Two passersby witnessed the attack and intervened. Moskowitz suffered a cracked rib and bruises all over his body. Police apprehended 40-year-old James Vincent, who has been charged with assault and a hate crime.

In the third incident, an Israeli yeshivah bochur was assaulted by two African-American males as he walked to his residence at around midnight on April 30. According to the victim, “they pushed me [hard against] a parked car and punched me in the face. They wanted to kill me.” Police arrested two suspects and charged them with robbery.

For decades, there’s been a large Orthodox Jewish community in Crown Heights living alongside an African-American community. For the most part, their coexistence has been peaceful, with the notable exception of the August 1991 riots that took the life of 29-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum.

There is no obvious predicate for the attacks, but there are strong suspicions about what’s causing them. Like much of Brooklyn, Crown Heights is undergoing a marked gentrification, with real estate prices soaring and developers building luxury apartments in the area. That may be good news for those who have invested in the neighborhood. But for the struggling families who are trying to pay the rent and make ends meet, it’s making life increasingly difficult.

“There’s a lot of tension because of the poverty and suffering,” says Behrman.

That tension went looking for someone to blame. “There’s a false view on the street,” says Behrman, “that the Jews are benefitting from the gentrification, and the African-Americans are being targeted by greedy landlords and developers. But that just isn’t true. Rents are rising for all of us, Jews and non-Jews alike. We are not to blame because your house is in foreclosure.”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 709)