Crown Heights 20 Years After the Riots.... It's A Wonderful World

What I find most amazing about Crown Heights 20 years after the riots, is the only ones talking about the riots are the press and the media. All day yesterday, in front of 770, the news crews were set up trying to interview people or giving  On Air sound bites reminding people about what was 20 years ago. Most people didn't have time to stop and talk, nor did they want to... a few did as there are always people who love to talk on air live.

Mind you the ONLY reason I noticed them, that I saw the news crews was that I was on the OTHER SIDE OF EASTERN PARKWAY coming back from having brunch at Basil, a new wonderful restaurant that serves both the Orthodox Kosher community as well as some wayward Vegans that eat eggs and the local community in Crown Heights that is not Lubavitch... the Caribbean Blacks, Jamaicans, Haitians, Hipsters and white people who wander in who have heard about the food and the atmosphere and incredible service.

To truly open up your eyes and SEE Geulah and Moshiach is to sit a spell in Basil, order a Cafe Con Leche and a croissant filled with Cabernet cheese, Asian pears, walnuts and honey for breakfast and watch the people in and out of the restaurant. Everyone smiles, nods and goes about life as if this is normal and indeed today it is normal. Two sweet, bubbly Jamaican girls were in their yesterday dressed in bright red dresses sipping banana and strawberry smoothies out of a big wine goblet. They told me they were delicious, healthy and not too sweet. :) A couple from Williamsburg was in dressed in some sort of Satymr garb, the woman was wearing a the scarf over the wig thats just bangs that I can't remember what it's called holding her 9th baby while her 8th baby played nearby, we shared mothering discussions while her husband sat quietly eating her food while the two cute girls with the smoothies slowly sipped their smoothie. An Ultra Orthodox man was sitting at the "Community Table" with two non-Jews who were obviously all there on a business meeting. A young Spanish girl wandered in and in broken English ordered two Paninis to go. I sat with my daughter enjoying breakfast and enjoying to me what is Moments of Moshiach happening in real time.

It's a Cholev Yisroel restaurant with trendy food that if I blink twice I will think is back home on South Beach, but it's on the OTHER SIDE of Eastern Parkway and everyone is eating together and enjoying life.

Now if that is not Geulah, I don't know what is.

When we can all get together and live our own lives and dance to our own drummer and eat healthy food, who do not "mind" eating "kosher food" and don't mind sitting together in a spirit of respect and live and let live and wish each other a good day.... that is a Moment of Moshiach.

When I was a girl in school here, my mother sent me a package which went back to the Post Office and I needed to pick it up on the other side of Eastern Parkway. I was told I could NOT walk there even though it was 2 blocks past 770 and I had to take a car service. I paid the driver and thanked him for driving me over and he refused to leave me there. I told him I would call another car service to go back, not to worry. He refused. He told me he'd sit outside, take a break and I should just come out and not stay there by myself. It always seemed sort of stupid and crazy. I mean it was 2 blocks from 770 where I always felt safe, but alas it was THE OTHER SIDE OF EASTERN PARKWAY.  It was like saying you wanted to go fast to Paroah's Post Office back in Egypt... now it's Geulah and Crown Heights has spread out far and wide. My kids live on the OTHER SIDE OF EMPIRE where I rarely walked and they eat on THE OTHER SIDE OF EASTERN PARKWAY.  

The point is in Geulah there should be no sides and no walls, we should be able to open up to the wonders around us and see the smile in another person's heart no matter what their color or background is and this goes BOTH WAYS as I always did. Being the bubbly, sweet Miami girl I am I would smile at everyone, nod my head and they would stare back and glare at me like I was crazy. My friends in school would look at me like I was crazy, the sweet old black lady pushing her grandchild past me looked at me like "girl, don't you know no one looks at anyone here"    I did, it's just the way I always was... but the truth is back then both sides didn't understand each other and there were no "hipsters" or Asians or people who are obviously of mixed heritage which you see a lot in Crown Heights on both side of the religious divide as Lubavitch itself has more people with one parent Black Jewish and one parent White or Spanish or Italian or French.

In Chabad when you convert you are simply another Jew, there is no color or language barrier. When you walk into 770 you see prayer books in Portuguese next to the Russian/Hebrew prayer books next to the French Tanyas next to... etc, etc, etc.  One of my closest friends is from Sri Lanka (we miss palm trees when up north) and another is from India proper, another is American Black and another sweet girl I spent the day talking to is from Guyana, she is so beautiful inside and out... we talked on the first time we both saw snow. We are Lubavitch, we are the faces of Lubavitch. Valley girls mix with Miami girls who mix with Israelis and English Lubavitchers at a wedding in Crown Heights last night.

I talked to the Satmyr girl about babies as easily as I did the two Jamaican girls.

When you don't SEE barriers but you SEE people... that is when you are truly out of Golus.

And, when you can order Chinese food and Sushi on one side of Kingston at midnight and a croissant on the other side of Kingston for breakfast, you are really living in Geulah.

Let the press and the media remind everyone about the riots .. that were mostly people brought in on buses from elsewhere in NYC looking for trouble as the dirty truth about Crown Heights is that the Island Blacks who lived in Crown Heights always next to the Chabad families usually got along. They rarely chit chatted or talked like they do now, but they got along. They respected each other and they LOVED living in Crown Heights.

They did 20 years ago, they still do. They both stayed.... others are beginning to finally see why we stayed, they are beginning to get it. And, they are opening up their eyes and seeing goodness and kindness rather than what they were told by others is a "scary dark place" that was dangerous.

So, may I say... Crown Heights 20 years after the riots is just as wonderful a place to live as it was 20 years before and 40 years before and I know because I lived here a long time ago :) and love it today as much as I did then.

So, next time you are thinking on going to some cute restaurant in Park Slope, stop in Crown Heights and get a table outside if the weather is nice and have lunch at Basil and then to walk off the calories take a walk down towards Eastern Parkway and enjoy the mix of life and love that goes on every day in Crown Heights.

And, then I went into 770 and learned with some friends and continued on my day seeing moments of Moshiach in my life and the lives of others around me.

Open up your eyes, take a walk, give someone a smile and leave the walls of Golus and Exile and a Ghetto Mentality behind!!