As the Sabbath entered the early morning hours on Saturday, about 15 people remained at the Chabad of Bushwick. Rabbi Menachem Heller, seated at the long dinner table, was talking to some of the congregants. His wife was feeding one of their children, as five others played in the storefront synagogue.

Then, around 2 a.m., the jubilant celebration was interrupted by a deafening sound.

Rabbi Heller grabbed his children and hid in a corner, unsure of what caused the noise. Then, he saw two faces peer through the broken storefront and scamper away. The glass window had been smashed, leaving a gaping hole.

The police said they were investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

Rabbi Heller said he hoped his synagogue merely a victim of petty crime as opposed to a target. However, the episode comes amid a rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York. In 2018, hate crimes in the city rose by 5 percent, with larger increases in attacks against black and Jewish people.

“We’ve had many incidents in Crown Heights,” Rabbi Heller said about hate crimes. “It’s on our mind all the time.”

In fact, Rabbi Heller said that the rise of hate crimes had come up in discussion on Friday night but that he never expected something like this in Bushwick.

“I hope it’s not a hate crime, because if it is, it’s really scary,” he said. “Bushwick is a very progressive, very welcoming place.”

Later on Saturday, Rabbi Heller said, congregants returned to the synagogue to celebrate Shabbat, and they were joined by members of the community, including non-Jews who came to show support.

“It was very inspiring because many people from the community, all different kinds of people came in,” he said. “It was very, very comforting to have the support.”

Chabad of Bushwick, which Rabbi Heller founded with his wife about 10 years ago, is on Flushing Avenue, next to a tattoo parlor and a mail store.

On Sunday morning, broken glass sat in a pile on the pavement below the smashed-out lower left section of the synagogue’s picture window, and police tape stretched from a wire metal bench placed outside to the padlocked front door.

The bench anchoring the police tape on Sunday is the synagogue’s community seating for anyone who wants to use it, said Debbie Perez, who manages the mail store next door.

“He’s always willing to help somebody,” Ms. Perez said about Rabbi Heller. “No matter who you are, he invites you in.”

She called the idea that anyone would vandalize the synagogue “disgusting,” but added, “I worry every weekend I leave from here.”

Between the foot traffic from bars that have proliferated nearby and the spillover from the L train stop, “It gets pretty spicy around here at nighttime, actually,” Ms. Perez said. “Especially over the weekends, I always hear of something.”

Sean Piccoli contributed reporting.

Follow Tyler Pager on Twitter: @tylerpager.

Source: Read Full Article