As antisemitism has resurged in the past year, one documentary filmmaker thought it would be beneficial to look back on the worst antisemitic riot in U.S. history: the 1991 Crown Heights riot.
Wall Street Journal Opinion and Palladium Pictures released “Get the Jew”: The Crown Heights Riot Revisited on the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. The 23-minute documentary recounts the three-day riot in the Brooklyn neighborhood, examining how political figures of the day responded to the violence committed by blacks against Jews.
“Outside of New York, many people had never heard of the Crown Heights riot,” Michael Pack, president and CEO of Palladium Pictures, told National Review. “It’s worth looking back at what happened, given that we’re dealing with a new wave of antisemitism. I’m surprised at how the pattern of Crown Heights repeated itself.”
Known for his work on Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, Pack produced, wrote, and directed the short documentary on the Crown Heights riot. By creating an engaging film, he hopes audiences can learn from the mistakes of the past.
In August 1991, tensions flared in New York City when a Jewish driver accidentally killed a seven-year-old Guyanese-American boy named Gavin Cato with his station wagon. Rumors quickly spread about whether the driver was drunk or intentionally ran over two children, one of whom survived. Couple that misunderstanding with existing racial discord, and violence was the result.
The incident led to the stabbing and death of Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old Orthodox Jew from Australia working toward his doctorate in history. The black man who incited the mob attack yelled, “Get the Jew!” The quote became the inspiration for the film’s title.
One day later, Reverend Al Sharpton and other community leaders held rallies across the predominantly black neighborhood, demanding the arrest of the Hasidic driver responsible for Cato’s death. On the third day of the riot, Sharpton led a march in which rioters carried antisemitic signs and chanted, “No Justice, No Peace!” and “Heil Hitler.”
In the documentary, Sharpton notes he called for a peaceful march and did not support the antisemitic signs.
“If somebody comes to the edge of my marches with a sign, number one, not only do they not represent us, as I’m at the front, I don’t even know they’re behind me with a sign,” the civil-rights activist says.
Though Sharpton was accused of inciting violence that day and cast as antisemitic by Rosenbaum’s brother years later, Pack was interested in giving the reverend an opportunity to tell his side of the story.
“I was very careful interviewing Al Sharpton to make sure he had a full say. He generously agreed to be interviewed knowing it’s the Wall Street Journal opinion section, and I respect that,” Pack said. “It’s very easy when someone gives you an hourlong interview to make them look stupid. I am totally against that, whether people agree with me or not.”
Despite having his own opinion on Sharpton’s role in the Crown Heights riot, Pack wanted to let viewers decide what they think about the interview. But while making the film, he did come away with one conclusion: that Sharpton is an example of progressives failing to stand up to left-wing antisemitism.
The same can be said of the New York City mayor at the time, David Dinkins. The late Democratic politician was widely criticized for holding back police from making arrests, allowing the racial unrest to fester for three days that August. Rumor had it Dinkins privately said, “Let them vent,” referring to the rioters.
Only after the mayor and police commissioner were attacked did law enforcement put an end to the riot the following day.
Dinkins’s inaction ultimately helped cost him reelection two years later. Rudy Giuliani, who campaigned on ensuring law and order in New York City, took his place.
“When people talk about the history of New York City, the great crime increase from the late ’60s to the early 1990s, they say all the time it changed with Rudy Giuliani,” WSJ Opinion writer Elliot Kaufman says in the film. “I would tell them it changed with the Crown Heights riot.” “Get the Jew” is based on Kaufman’s 2021 op-ed titled, “Could the Crown Heights Riots Recur?”
The documentary closes with footage of the anti-Israel protests that swept across the world following October 7, 2023. The new wave of antisemitism inspired the non-fatal stabbing of a Jewish man near a synagogue in the Crown Heights neighborhood this August. The attacker shouted, “Free Palestine” and “Do you want to die?”
“It should sharpen our attention to the fact that this is a problem very much in the present,” Pack told NR, “and we need to learn from the past and demand action from our leaders today or it’ll simply keep repeating itself.”
“Get the Jew” is the first in a series of short documentary films called WSJ Opinion Docs. Pack’s next project, The Prime Minister vs. the Blob, will focus on short-lived prime minister Liz Truss’s battle with the U.K. version of the Swamp.
Teased by Pack as a cross between British political thriller House of Cards (not to be confused with the Netflix series of the same name) and British sitcom Yes Minister, the film will be released on YouTube in late November.