Death of a Scholar

DEATH OF A SCHOLAR By Constance Shames AuthorHouse Copyright ? 2011 Constance Shames All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4567-6322-0 Chapter One THE RIOT August 19 1991 It was a hot and humid night and the rioting began with crowd hysteria. It was like a carnival. It was an expression of power of the will to dominate. Shouting and laughing comingled. It was strength in numbers and it was a seizure of a neighborhood. Broken glass filled the streets and garbage pails rolled along the center of the streets as young men beat on them with baseball bats. And the shouting began Kill the Jews. There was a taste for blood and if one were to listen carefully words of silent prayer might be found behind the door of the Hasidim as they hid from the wild crowd. It was also a night for a killing and one in which a mayor would be accused of turning his back on the violence. I have always feared and hated violence. As a young child I had the idea that guns and killing were all fantasy and they only existed in comic books and movies. When my parents whispered that my cousin had been killed in the war I was not supposed to hear but I became very upset and unable to sleep. The riots in Crown Heights Brooklyn began in the late summer of 1991 and when I saw them on TV I was as fearful as when I was a child. The accounts which were printed in the New York Times left me numb. It was more than disbelief. I knew it was not fantasy but I could not comprehend that looting and fires in a local neighborhood so well known to me was occurring. As the story unfolded I followed every detail. This was a terrible time for the city and for me personally. About 8 PM on August 19 1991 a car driven by an orthodox Jew was part of a motorcade traveling thru Crown Heights Brooklyn. The Grand Rebbe was in the procession. The driver veered to avoid hitting two black children playing in the street but hit a wall and struck them. There was no evid