Crown Heights at 30

Observing Rosh Hashanah today, I scheduled this otherwise tardy post to appear this morning. For some reason or other, little note was taken of the thirtieth anniversary of the Crown Heights riots of August 1991 that kicked off with the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum. Anticipating the silence, the Washington Free Beacon assembled a package of stories and columns to commemorate the event. The pieces are assembled here. I commend to your attention:

• Fred Siegel, “Reflections on Crown Heights, 30 Years Later.”

• Alana Goodman, “30 Years Later: Remembering Crown Heights.”

• Drew Holden, “Media Ghosts of the Crown Heights Riot.

• Charles F. Lehman, “The Last Acceptable Hate Crime.”

• Andrew Stiles, “From Anti-Semitic Agitator to Democratic Power Broker: The Preposterous Resurrection of Al Sharpton.”

• Andrew Stiles, “The Crown Heights Riot, In Context, Explained.”

• Joseph Simonson, “Crown Heights Killer Lemrick Nelson Remains a Free Man.”

The Free Beacon also posted the video flashback below with this text: “On August 19, 1991, anti-Semitic riots erupted in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood. For three days, mobs chanted Nazi slogans, looted businesses, and attacked the neighborhood’s Jewish residents. Thirty years later, the community is remembering one of the worst episodes of anti-Semitic violence in American history.”

I also commend to your attention from Tablet and JNS, respectively:

• Armin Rosen, “A Brother’s Death.”

• Jonathan Tobin, “Why the Crown Heights pogrom still matters.”

And this blast from National Review’s past (issue dated March 20, 2000):

• Jay Nordlinger, “Al Sharpton: Power Dem.”

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