Unbelievable Threat: Antisemitic Group Targets Jews in Brooklyn
A radical group plans a vigil in Crown Heights to demand justice for a 1991 car accident that sparked deadly riots, raising fears of renewed antisemitic violence. Local leaders and police are on alert as the event nears, recalling the tragic murder that followed the original unrest.
A radical activist collective known as Crown Heights Bites Back has announced a vigil scheduled for today at Utica Avenue and President Street, reigniting memories of the violent 1991 Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, New York. The group’s statement, released on Monday, accuses the Chabad-Lubavitch community of “brutally killing” 7-year-old Gavin Cato in a 1991 car accident involving the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s motorcade, labeling it “vehicular manslaughter by a motorcade of Jewish supremacists” and demanding “justice” for the child, whose death also injured his cousin. This tragic incident sparked days of unrest, during which mobs attacked Jewish residents, looted stores, and fatally stabbed 29-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum, a Lubavitch member, in one of the city’s most infamous episodes of racial and anti-Semitic violence.
The vigil’s location, just blocks from Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway, the exact spot of the original accident, has alarmed local leaders. The Jewish Future Alliance, a neighbourhood advocacy organization, issued a stark warning: “They are attempting to reignite tensions by exploiting the tragic car accident that claimed the life of Gavin Cato, an event that led to the Crown Heights riots and the anti-Semitic murder of Yankel Rosenbaum. This is a dangerous pattern… While this fringe minority may not represent the broader community, history has shown that rhetoric like this fuels hatred and leads to real violence. It must be unequivocally condemned.”
Recent tensions in Crown Heights, including an April 2025 protest by the same group featuring racial rhetoric tied to the 1991 riots, a viral video of a Jewish man clashing with a Black man in a wheelchair, and a visit by far-right Israeli politician Itamar Ben Gvir that drew anti-Israel crowds, have heightened concerns. The NYPD is monitoring the situation, while Jewish community leaders are pressing authorities to prevent hate-driven rhetoric from escalating into violence, especially given the current date aligning with the riot’s anniversary. The neighborhood’s history of racial strife, compounded by ongoing global tensions since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, adds urgency to the call for peace.