Photos: Segev Peled/COLlive
Nosson’s Shul in Crown Heights welcomed a new Sefer Torah Sunday, sponsored in memory of activist R’ Shmuel Schrage OBM.
A community activist in Brooklyn in the 1960s and 1970s, Schrage became involved because yeshiva boys in Crown Heights were being beaten up by gangs coming in from Bedford Stuyvesant, and a Jewish woman was attacked by a knife-wielding man in her own home.
In response, he started the Maccabees, a neighborhood patrol group, which became quite famous and which was written up in The New York Times.
The Maccabees, most of them chasidic Jews, rode around Crown Heights six to a car, equipped with nothing more than radios and large flashlights. If they saw an incident, they alerted the police and aided the victim until the authorities came.
The new Torah was sponsored in his memory by his wife, Mrs. Rose Schrage.
The event began with the completion of the final letters of the Torah at the Clapman residence, after which the Torah was led with live music and dancing to Nosson’s Shul for Hakafos and a festive Seudah.
Mazel Tov i was there it was Beautiful