Beating Revives Tension in N.Y. Neighborhood

NEW YORK — 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. Last year, a car driven by a Lubavitcher accidentally killed a black child, a rabbinical student was stabbed to death in retaliation, and disturbances followed over several nights.

Last month, a jury acquitted a black man accused of the stabbing death, apparently because some jurors did not believe police testimony. Dinkins, who is black, criticized the verdict only mildly, incensing many Jews.

On Wednesday, Moishe Katzman, a 24-year-old Lubavitcher, was arraigned on charges of beating Ralph Nimmons and was released in his own custody.

Nimmons, 25, told police that Katzman was among a group that attacked him early Tuesday behind the Lubavitch world headquarters. Nimmons suffered a broken nose and a mild concussion.

Katzman is the only person who has been arrested so far. He was charged with second-degree assault, weapon possession, aggravated assault and possession of a noxious substance.

Defense attorney George Farkas said Katzman, a rabbinical student, was at home with his wife when Nimmons was beaten.

Farkas added: “This is anything but a racial confrontation. What it had to do with was an attempt to apprehend a burglar.”

The Lubavitchers said Nimmons was caught breaking into a Jewish religious school and was injured while resisting his captors. They said he was seen burglarizing other buildings in the past seven weeks, but got away.

Police said a Hasidic man had turned in a wrench, a screwdriver, a pizza cutter and a knife that he said had been carried by Nimmons.

On Wednesday morning, Dinkins was berated after a ceremony at the Crown Heights library and likened to Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan--whom Dinkins once denounced for calling Judaism a gutter religion.

“You’re giving free reign to robbers to break into houses and claim bias attacks,” shouted a Hasidic woman, Roslyn Malamud. “You’re just as dangerous as Farrakhan.”