A bearded man in a beaver hat and a black caftan walking the streets of the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn today is in much less danger of being threatened or assaulted than a few months ago. The man might be a policeman disguised as a Hasidic rabbi.
In a program worked out by the Crown Heights Community Council and the New York Police Department, 24 police officers, all non-Jews, disguised themselves as Hasidim in order to combat a rash of beatings suffered by Hasidim by local hoodlums. According to Rabbi Arnold Wolf, chairman of the Crown Heights Community Council, such threats and assaults have dropped off heavily. “Imagine the amazement and stultification,” he said, when a tough attacked what he thought was a defenseless Hasid, only to find him fighting back and identifying himself as a policeman.
“He would think twice the next time,” Rabbi Wolf said. “As a result of close cooperation between the police department and the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, the Crown Heights area in the past year has seen a sharp decrease in crime.”
The plan was such a success that Mayor John Lindsay has ordered 300 tactical patrol force policemen into the war against crime in the streets disguised not only as Hasidim, but other clergymen, hippies, derelicts and even women.
The plan involved assigning policemen to the areas reporting the greatest number of assaults. The policemen will stay in the areas to keep the level of incidents at its new low level. They are walking the streets of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Williamsburg and also Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “The community has become a quiet, sedate model integrated community,” Rabbi Wolf said, “so much so that there is now a shortage of apartments.’ There is a shortage of houses and many families desiring to purchase houses in the area are becoming keenly aware of the shortage.”
The policemen affect an accent to portray their roles more convincingly. Their hats and caftans have been custom-made and they have been carefully tutored in Hasidic behavior. Beards were grown and the long curls were simulated. One policeman looked so convincing that he was invited in Yiddish by a young boy to join the family for Seder. The policeman tried to explain that he didn’t speak Yiddish and was rescued only when a real rabbi, who happened to pass by, explained the invitation to the policeman and directed him into the house for Seder.
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