Angry, Frightened Borough Park Residents Mourn Slain Neighbor

Hundreds of Orthodox Jews crowded a yeshiva in Brooklyn Sunday to remember a murdered 39-year-old postal worker who left behind a wife, a nine-month-old daughter and a legacy here of sadness, fear and anger.

The “chesped,” or memorial service, capped a week of community activism in the predominately Orthodox Borough Park section of Brooklyn, where Eli Wald, a “baal teshuvah,” or newly observant Jew, was stabbed more than 11 times coming home from work Dec. 25.

Detectives at the 66th police precinct said Sunday that they are pursuing a few leads in the murder, which many community members felt was bias-related. But Captain Michael Scagnelli, head of the precinct, said the stabbing was the result of a robbery “that went bad.”

Rabbinical leaders at the service repeated their calls made earlier in the week for increased donations to the community’s privately-funded safety patrol, financial support for Zohara Wald and her daughter Rochel, and cooperation among the disparate, and sometimes fractious, Hasidic and non-Hasidic Orthodox groups who share the neighborhood.

“Because of this tragedy, the community should come together and become more of one community,” said Rabbi Jacob Perlow, the Noveminsker rebbe.

“All Jews in the community, we are all one being. If one gets hurt, it’s like tearing off a limb,” said Rabbi Naftali Halberstam, son of the Bobover rebbe.

Their remarks, in Yiddish, were received with rapt silence from the black-hatted men and boys who packed the benches and the aisles of the Beth Jacob Yeshiva auditorium. Loudspeakers carried their words outside the school building, where dozens more gathered on the sidewalk.

TRADITIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD

At least 100,000 non-Hasidic Orthodox and Hasidic Jews live in Borough Park, a neighborhood of two and three-story attached homes, with shop windows announcing “We will be open motzei shabbos,” computer stores offering Hebrew software and with what seems like a synagogue or yeshiva on every corner.

According Scagnelli, occasional muggings occur in the neighborhood, but Borough Park is still what he called a low-crime precinct.

Wald lived a block away from the elevated subway tracks that stretch north to Manhattan and south toward Coney Island. Wald was not raised in an Orthodox family, but came to identify himself as a member of the Lubavitch Hasidim.

He was “a content person,” according to Rabbi Mordechai Marcus, an acquaintance and a teacher at Yeshivat Ohr Torah in Queens, N.Y. Marcus said Wald was “just happy to be religious. He felt privileged being involved in Torah mitzvahs.”

Wald’s body was found at 1:10 a.m. Dec. 25 with multiple stab sounds in his front and back. Because his wallet, containing $2 cash, and other personal belongings had not been disturbed, neighbors called a rally in order to call attention to what they said was an anti-Semitic attack.

A detective from the bias crimes unit has uncovered no evidence that the crime was racially motivated. One Borough Park resident has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the murderer’s capture.

The murder also caused local leaders to call for renewed support of the Borough Park Community Patrol. According to Chaim Israel, director of the patrol, unarmed neighborhood volunteers and armed guards carrying licensed revolvers monitor the neighborhood in marked cars around the clock. Community members are asked to contribute $52 per year for the service, and contributions had been falling off in the last few years.

The first shifts of the rebuilt patrol began Sunday night.

Wald’s murder also drew attention to friction among neighborhood groups. One anonymously written flier distributed at the memorial service and seen blowing in the streets blocks away blared “Jew Murdered: Council Coverup.”

It went on to claim that the local Council of Jewish Organizations, which organized the memorial service at the request of local rabbis, had attempted to downplay Wald’s funeral and had pocketed money intended for the patrol.

Last week, Rabbi Morris Shmidman, executive director of the council, called the “coverup” charges “nonsense.” On Monday, he said the council is not responsible for running the patrol. “The patrol is not viable because people have not paid the dues,” he added.

DIVISION OVER JDL, JDO

The community has also been divided over the presence of the Jewish Defense League and the Jewish Defense Organization, both of which announced security plans for the neighborhood. At Sunday’s memorial service, Mordechai Levy, head of the JDO, handed out applications for gun permits.

Israel of the Borough Park Security Patrol, however, said the other groups’ efforts were “dangerous things. I think it is dangerous to get individuals into confrontations, to jeopardize people in the community. God forbid someone gets hurt, then who’s responsible?”

According to Shmidman, the community appreciates how the police are conducting their investigation.

But fear and anger also remain. In a voice cracking with emotion, Rabbi Halberstam told mourners, “We came to the United States seeking peace and tranquility. Now it’s dangerous to go out in the streets at night.”