Funeral services were held Sunday for Rabbi Samuel Schrage, who achieved the highest posts in city government held by a Lubavitch member as assistant executive director of the New York City Youth Board in 1966 and as director of the city’s Neighborhood Action Program (NAP) in 1969. Schrage, who was 44, died last Friday from a heart attack.
The Brooklyn rabbi became known for his organization of the Macabees, a group of young Hasidic Jews who at night rode through the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, home of the world headquarters of the Lubavitcher movement, with radio-equipped cars and large flash lights. The four cars, each manned by six Hasidim, patrolled the 100 square blocks of the area, alerting the police to incidents and aiding victims of street crime when the police were not available. Schrage organized the group in response to muggings of men and women and attacks on Hasidic students.
Schrage was appointed to the city posts by then Mayor John Lindsay. Mayor Abraham Beame dismissed the rabbi from the NAP program in 1974 as one of the city’s reactions to its fiscal crisis. Born in Brazil of Polish emigrants, Schrage came to the United States at 14 on a scholarship to attend a rabbinical seminary. Ordained in 1958, he became administrator of the United Lubavitch Yeshivoth in Crown Heights.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
