NEW YORK — Since the destruction of their temple in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago, religious Jews have refrained from playing music on the anniversary of that calamitous event. This year, when that anniversary coincided with the anniversary of the race riots that engulfed the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, a small group of ultra-Orthodox Hasidim broke with ancient tradition.
"I spoke to my rabbi and I said, 'Our band has an opportunity to play for more than 10,000 residents of Crown Heights, all black, and spread our message of racial harmony,' " recalled maverick Hasidic musician David Lazerson. "I said, 'Can we do it?' " The response came back swiftly: "To do work that will bring greater peace to the community, you're obligated if you have the opportunity."
Making music during the mourning period around the holy day of Tishah be-Av is not the only way Lazerson's band has defied custom.
With its bearded members from the Lubavitcher Hasidic sect, this group sings not age-old East European melodies but joins with its black neighbors to belt out rap tunes about racial tolerance and religious understanding.
"Said, yo! Said, oy veh!"
Lazerson shouts at the start of one of his most popular numbers, performed with a fellow rapper, African-American Baptist minister Paul Chandler.
At the front of the stage, 16-year-old yeshiva student Yehudah Simon is hip-hop dancing along with a black youth, Thomas Joseph Moses.
"It takes a lot of guts to even try something like this," said Chandler, an associate pastor at Crown Heights Fellowship Baptist Church. "In the Jewish community they say we have a lot of chutzpah."
Astonishing some blacks and unnerving as many Lubavitchers, the group known as Dr. Laz and the Cure has forged a rare symbiosis in this Balkanized corner of New York City. Riots erupted here in August 1991 when a car driven by a Hasidic man accidentally struck and killed a black boy.
Hours later, a gang of blacks sought vengeance by killing a Hasidic scholar while chanting anti-Semitic epithets. Last month's acquittal of a black teen-ager accused of the murder has exacerbated the conflict between the highly divergent communities.
The band performed this month at a local intercommunal basketball game, one of a series held in an effort to bring Jews and blacks closer together. Varying between six and eight members, the band has played at a reception for delegates to last summer's Democratic National Convention, Brooklyn's annual West Indian Day Parade and several outdoor concerts around the borough.
