Jews New York City

Some people in the closely knit, highly religious Bobov Hasidic community in Brooklyn were so nervous Wednesday they were afraid to tell the Grand Rabbi. What they have is bad news, spreading quickly through the streets of Borough Park. Amazing as it seemed, two Orthodox Jewish rabbis, Bernard Grunfeld, 64, and Mahir Reiss, 47, were among a dozen people charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to launder and hide more than $1.75 million in profits by Colombian drug dealers.

The number of Jews living in New York City has dropped below 1 million for the first time in a century, a new study has found. But the Jewish population of Greater New York, defined as the five boroughs of the city plus three suburban counties in New York state -- Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk -- has remained stable at 1.4 million, according to the study by the UJA-Federation of New York. Similar studies have indicated that the Jewish population of Greater Los Angeles is about 600,000.

Hundreds of mourners, demanding justice and shouting at police officers, marched Monday alongside a hearse carrying the coffin of a 7-year-old black child whose death set off rioting in a mixed black and Jewish neighborhood. The marchers moved tensely and slowly through Brooklyn for five miles, from a Baptist church at which funeral services were held for Gavin Cato to a cemetery where he was buried. As mourners marched, they shouted, "We want justice."

For more than four decades, this community of Hasidic residents has lived a reclusive existence far removed from the malls and subdivisions surrounding the village north of New York City. TV sets and newspapers are banned here. So are shorts, T-shirts and bathing suits. Signs in Yiddish advise men and women to walk on different sides of the road. As mothers shepherd children through snowy streets, their fathers, husbands and sons spend hours poring over holy texts.

Violence erupted in Brooklyn's racially troubled Crown Heights neighborhood Wednesday for the third straight day as blacks continued their protests against police handling of a car accident in which a black child was killed by a Hasidic Jewish driver. Police said that 61 people, including 43 police officers, were injured. Eight of the policemen were struck by a shotgun blast fired from a roof. They were reported in good condition. Late in the evening, Mayor David N.

A confrontation between the leaders of two militant Jewish organizations erupted into gunfire in New York's Greenwich Village Thursday, resulting in the wounding of a 69-year-old bystander. Police arrested Brooklyn-born Mordechai Levy, 27, chairman of the Jewish Defense Organization (JDO), for firing a semiautomatic assault rifle at Los Angeles resident Irv Rubin, national director of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), and two others.

The city agreed to pay $1.35 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jews who accused New York City Hall of not doing enough to protect them during race riots in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section seven years ago. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani also offered a public apology for the actions of his predecessor, David N. Dinkins, who was blamed for not ordering a tougher police response during the four nights of clashes between blacks and Orthodox Jews.

Racial tension has increased in the volatile Crown Heights neighborhood after a black man was beaten by a group of Hasidic Jews who said he was trying to break into a building. A rabbinical student was arrested in the beating. And members of the ultra-orthodox Lubavitch sect charged Wednesday that Mayor David N. Dinkins had provoked an "incendiary" atmosphere in the neighborhood by jumping to conclusions about the beating. Crown Heights is a black and Jewish section of Brooklyn.

A Soviet diplomat's speech in a New York City temple marked the first time a representative of the Soviet Union had appeared in an official capacity at an American Jewish synagogue. Oleg Derkovsky, a political counselor on Near and Middle East affairs at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, called his invitation to visit Temple Emanu-el on the Russian Orthodox New Year's Day "a symbol of new times, of changes for the better." The temple has the world's largest Reform Jewish congregation.

About 4,500 people jammed a West Side street in New York City at a protest by Jewish groups demanding that Israel end its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hoisting placards advising "Enough!" and "Better That We Should Have Peace Than the Greater Israel," the crowd burst into cheers when Peter Yarrow, of the singing group Peter, Paul and Mary, denounced Israel's handling of violent Palestinian unrest in the territories.

According to tradition, the festival of Hanukkah was born when Maccabean Jews in 165 BC fought off Syrian-Greek armies and began to restore their desecrated temple. They only had enough oil to light their lamps for one night, but by some miracle the light burned for eight days. Tonight, as Hanukkah begins at sunset, a similar tale of wonder is unfolding at the Young Israel temple on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

In June, New York will see a $500,000 citywide, four-day celebration commemorating the 50th anniversaries of the Cantors Assembly and the state of Israel, including what is billed as the world's largest live outdoor event in the organization's honor. And it took three cantors from Los Angeles to put it together. "I don't think at first anybody believed it," said Nate Lam, a cantor at the Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel-Air and chairman of the event.

The city agreed to pay $1.35 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jews who accused New York City Hall of not doing enough to protect them during race riots in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section seven years ago. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani also offered a public apology for the actions of his predecessor, David N. Dinkins, who was blamed for not ordering a tougher police response during the four nights of clashes between blacks and Orthodox Jews.

When a five-story glass window collapsed onto the balcony of one of the Lower East Side's oldest synagogues last summer, the elderly congregation waited more than a month before asking for help to fix it. While shards of glass lay scattered on the floor, the 148-year-old building's enormous sanctuary was vulnerable to wind, rain and the occasional pigeon. "It was literally open to the elements," said Ken Lustbader, a preservationist at the private New York Landmarks Conservancy.

Some people in the closely knit, highly religious Bobov Hasidic community in Brooklyn were so nervous Wednesday they were afraid to tell the Grand Rabbi. What they have is bad news, spreading quickly through the streets of Borough Park. Amazing as it seemed, two Orthodox Jewish rabbis, Bernard Grunfeld, 64, and Mahir Reiss, 47, were among a dozen people charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring to launder and hide more than $1.75 million in profits by Colombian drug dealers.

In the wake of a shooting attack on ultra-Orthodox Jewish students, New York-area Arab and Jewish leaders appealed for calm Sunday after the funeral of a slain Jewish student. About 5,000 members of the Hasidic Lubavitch community shut down traffic in part of Brooklyn as 16-year-old rabbinical student Aaron Halberstam was eulogized as a "sacrificial lamb." Halberstam died four days after he was wounded in Tuesday's shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge.

About 30 Jewish and Arab demonstrators exchanged angry words and punches outside a Manhattan courthouse as jury selection began for the trial of El Sayyid Nosair, accused of killing the militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. Police arrested one Nosair supporter. Nosair, 35, an Egyptian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and unlawful imprisonment. He has been held without bail since his arrest on Nov.

In the wake of a shooting attack on ultra-Orthodox Jewish students, New York-area Arab and Jewish leaders appealed for calm Sunday after the funeral of a slain Jewish student. About 5,000 members of the Hasidic Lubavitch community shut down traffic in part of Brooklyn as 16-year-old rabbinical student Aaron Halberstam was eulogized as a "sacrificial lamb." Halberstam died four days after he was wounded in Tuesday's shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Never again. As he stands by his young son's grave on a sweltering afternoon, Carmel Cato rises above private grief to issue a public warning. A message to the Hasidic Jews whose motorcade accidentally killed his boy, Gavin, two years ago, triggering New York's worst race riots in two decades. "Nobody ever paid the price for this, nobody went to jail," says Cato, a soft-spoken black man with tears in his eyes.

Plotters who planned to blow up the United Nations and other prominent targets also discussed exploding a powerful bomb in mid-town Manhattan's crowded diamond district to inflict heavy casualties on Jewish businessmen, federal prosecutors charged Tuesday. Government lawyers said the scheme was revealed when some of the alleged terrorists were secretly tape-recorded in a car as they scouted potential targets.