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| A shomrim vehicle, courtesy NY Times |
The New York Times has written an interesting article about the Shomrim, an Orthodox Jewish patrol out of New York. See article here...http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/nyregion/brooklyns-private-jewish-patrols-wield-power-some-call-them-bullies.html?_r=0
The bottom line is that the cops are not always there when you need them. Time sometimes is of the essence.
I give you an example. When I was around ten years old I was putting up posters with my brother on 13th avenue around 1 AM for the Dov Hikind campaign. I noticed that there were police patrols on 13th avenue but stopped by 1 AM. Back then, around 1974, 13th avenue was a two way street. We were with ten people hanging signs on poles. Out of the blue a silver lincoln town car pulls up and there were two Italian looking people in the front seat. The passenger says to us, what are you doing? One tough JDL guy says none of your f ...in business. The passenger then says, what the f you say you f Jews and point a rifle at us and they take off. Then the hero Dov Hikind says, okay we got baseball bats, we can defend ourselves if they come back. Lo and behold, they came back, rifle in tow and they were screaming, we are going to kill you f Jews. Everyone dissappeared except me and my brother who hid alongside a car, the tire wheels in our face. The moments of fear felt eternal. Then they took off. Then some chasidim come by in a station wagon and show us bullet holes in the back of their car. I tell you, I was in such a panic I was afraid to walk the streets of New York for two weeks.
So the upshot of this story is I wish police were around. At least today we have cell phones with cameras and we can take pictures and we can call Shomrim or police to help us in an emergency.
I never saw that lincoln again. Thank G-d.
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