Young Rabbi Attacked in Crown Heights; Action Still Wasn’t Taken

By COLlive Staff

On the corner of Eastern Parkway and Rochester Avenue in Crown Heights, there is a building that has been a source of trouble to its neighbors for way over a decade, and according to local residents, the situation has become so dangerous that residents say they have had enough.

The building, located at 1215 Eastern Parkway, has been the location where gangs have been seen loitering, as well as drug addicts and thugs who continuously congregate there. For the last couple of years, the police have had a continuous presence in front of that building, which helped to make the area safe again.

In addition to keeping a police car in front of the building for many hours of the day and night, there was an NYPD light projector stationed to shine on the building, keeping the area well lit and helping to avoid crime incidents.

However, for some reason unknown to the residents, around a year ago, all police presence was removed from the building. Immediately afterwards, Jewish people who live in the area report that they have began to experience trouble while walking by that building, usually at night but sometimes even during the day. Residents told COLlive.com that they have been attacked by thugs hurling all kinds of harassing statements, such as, “Here goes the guy who owns all the buildings on the block,״ and other antisemitic and hateful kind of stigmas and tropes.

Jews living in the area hoped that these issues would pass with time, they said, but unfortunately it has not gotten better.

The tension reached its peak on Erev Shabbos Nachamu, the 10th of Av – 28th of July, 2023 when a young Chabad Rabbi by the name of Yosef Yitzchok Geisinsky was passing by the building, just before the onset of Shabbos at around 8:00 PM. Geisinsky, noticeably Jewish as he was dressed in his Shabbos garb – fedora hat, suit, and dress clothing – was worried about walking there because he was familiar with the problem of the thugs hanging out there. Seeing a group of youngsters congregating in front of the building, decided to walk on the island in the middle of the parkway to be safe.

Unfortunately, this did not help, as a large gang of between 7 to 10 Black youths followed him, crossed the street to the island, and armed with pails and buckets of water which they had filled up from the nearby fire hydrant, began pouring buckets of water all over him, until he was soaking wet. His hat, shoes, and suit were completely drenched.

Geisinsky attempted to flee, but they continued to chase him all the way to the end of the block, he said.

“It was clear to me that this was an antisemitic attack,” Geisinsky told COLlive. “Because there were several other Black people and another white non-Jewish male, who were walking right near me, and yet the gangsters only surrounded me and pounded me with water,” he said.

Geisinsky said none of the other passersby were attacked at all. Since it was just before Shabbos, he was unable to contact the police right away, he says.

Immediately after Shabbos, the young man contacted the police, in order to make a police report. “It took the police more than three hours to actually arrive,” Geisinsky related. “The police refused to call it a hate crime, and instead referred to it as harassment. They said I need to come down to the Precinct to pick up the police report before they would consider any plan of action.”

Geisinsky said for the next two weeks he visited both the 71st and 77th Precincts to try to obtain a copy of the incident report, but they refused to give it to him.

“After much pressure, they finally gave me the report, but then they told me there is nothing to be done, as they consider the incident just a harassment crime, and they said it’s not serious enough for them to take action,” Geisinsky said.

“I told them that this building has been a problem for way over a year and that gangsters constantly congregate outside and harass passersby. But they said that it was out of their hands, and they couldn’t take any action regarding this matter and that the police presence would not be returned.”

The thugs who attacked him still hang out in front of the building, Geisinsky says, and the worst part of is that many people are afraid to walk on the block due to this.

“The Jewish people who live on the block are afraid to walk by that building, and constantly avoid it by crossing the street to the other side,” he said.

Over the last month, many phone calls have been made to different dignitaries In the community regarding this issue, but to no avail.

“I truly hope that with COLlive publicizing the matter, this will alert the public to this pressing issue and hopefully something will be done about this problem,” he says.