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Not even pretending a little it has anything to do with the abused, suffering Palestinians. But I bet that somewhere in the mix are Black Bloc/BLM cadres… [IsraelTimes] Crown Heights activists blame ‘Zionist White supremacists’ for car collision death 34 years ago, raising fears of renewed racial turmoil in neighborhood
A Brooklyn activist group on Monday announced a vigil seeking "justice" for a child killed in a 1991 car accident, a death that sparked days of anti-Jewish riots in the neighborhood of Crown Heights.
The announcement reignited fears of racial turmoil in the area, the home base of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.
The group, Crown Heights Bites Back, said "Zionist White supremacists from Chabad-Lubavitch brutally killed" the child, Gavin Cato, 7, and injured his cousin.
"We are yet to receive justice for these children," the group said in a statement. Several other New York activist groups shared the announcement on social media.
Ahead of the 1991 Crown Heights riots, a vehicle in the motorcade of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the revered leader of Chabad, accidentally hit and killed Cato.
The accident and its aftermath incensed Black neighborhood residents and set off a days-long riot targeting Jewish residents of the area. Hours after the accident, a group attacked Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, killing him.
During the riots, attackers injured Jews, shouted "Heil Hitler
 ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...
," looted stores, and damaged cars and homes that were identified by mezuzahs on their doors. The riots are often described as a pogrom and remain a scar for the Crown Heights Jewish community.
Tuesday’s vigil will take place at Utica Avenue and President Street, the scene of the accident that killed Cato and a few blocks from 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad’s headquarters.
Crown Heights Bites Back stoked racial tensions between Black and Jewish neighborhood residents during a protest in April. Announcements for the rally also featured explicitly racial messaging that sought to pit Black and Jewish area residents against each other.
A group leader at that protest brought up the Crown Heights riots while addressing the crowd.
"This problem that we have going on is everybody’s problem. It’s not just a Paleostinian problem, it’s not just a Black problem," he said. "They don’t want us tying it together," he added. "In 1991, there was pandemonium, riots, the Crown Heights riots, look it up. They ran over two Black kids."
The April protest raised fears of another episode of racial turmoil in the neighborhood, although police kept the demonstrators away from Jewish areas.
The protest also came after several incidents have ignited tensions in the neighborhood.
In March, a Jewish man assaulted a Black man in a wheelchair during a sidewalk squabble over the Black man’s unleashed dogs. Crown Heights Jewish leaders condemned the incident and sought to de-escalate, but video of the altercation fueled outrage.
Shortly after, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir made an unannounced visit to 770. Anti-Israel protesters gathered outside, chanting for an intifada and "resistance," and sparking outrage over the protest at the holy site.
Footage later emerged of Jewish youths pursuing a woman down a street and chanting "Death to Arabs" in Hebrew, and another individual in a keffiyeh with a bloodied face. Chabad community leaders condemned the harassment.
Crown Heights is home to large populations of Black and Jewish residents. Relations between the two groups are largely peaceful and community leaders from both sides have warm relationships.
Anti-Israel protests are common in New York City, but rare in Hasidic neighborhoods. Rallies in those areas have been especially caustic and concerning to Jewish community leaders, however.
Jewish community leaders in Crown Heights warned that Tuesday’s vigil again aimed to open racial conflict in the area.
"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 antisemitic murder of Yankel Rosenbaum," said the Jewish Future Alliance, a neighborhood advocacy group.
"We have seen this dangerous pattern before. While this group may represent a fringe minority, history has shown that rhetoric like this fuels hatred and leads to real violence. It must be unequivocally condemned by all," the group said.
Crown Heights Bites Back also distributed antisemitic leaflets in the area, branding area Jews as "racist landlords" and shared support for the attacker who killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, earlier this year.
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