Melbourne, Australia, – Max Rosenbaum, whose son Yankel was killed in an assault that sparked violent race riots in New York in 1991, has died after suffering a major heart attack. He was 85.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Rosenbaum died at a hospital in the southeastern city of Melbourne, said his surviving son, Norman.
His other son, Yankel Rosenbaum, a Hasidic scholar, was attacked by a mob after a Hasidic driver accidentally hit and killed a 7-year-old black boy in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section in August 1991.
Irate blacks formed a mob that descended on Rosenbaum on Aug. 19 yelling, "Get the Jew!" Rosenbaum, stabbed four times, died a day later. He was 29.
The violence continued for more than two days as black youths swept through the neighborhood, burning police cars, looting stores and throwing bottles.
The riot helped shape the course of New York City politics, contributing to then-Mayor David Dinkins' loss to Rudy Giuliani in 1993. Jewish groups and a state investigation faulted Dinkins, the city's first black mayor, for not taking more decisive steps to stop the Crown Heights violence.
Max Rosenbaum, his wife, Fay, and Norman made regular appearances at court hearings in the cases against Yankel's assailants.
Lemrick Nelson, who was 16 at the time of the attack, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Co-defendant Charles Price, accused of instigating blacks to assault Jews, was sentenced to 11 years and eight months in prison.
Norman Rosenbaum remembered his father as a tireless crusader for civil rights, who was determined "that no other person would ever be subjected to the same type of violence" because of their race or ethnicity. [AP]
Nebach! What tzar Mr. Rosenbaum had to endure in his lifetime! May he be a mailitz yosher for his family and all of Klal Yisrael!
But lem-rick nelson YMSHV”Z walks the streets with his head high. And Yankel Rosenbaum’s murderer/s are still not brought to justice. Despite the best efforts of his brother Norman, who commuted to the US on an almost weekly basis.