Police Protection for Synagogue Amidst Danger

These things I'm not familiar. What did he do as the chaplain of the police department? Did he tell you about that at all? >> I still remember once um we were in the sukkah. Um the sukkah was a community sukkah. Which means that the sukkah wasn't privately owned. We shared a sukkah. Every family ate in the sukkah. It was a huge sukkah. >> [music] >> Um and one time the uh the chief of the precinct came into the sukkah. And he was Jewish. And he [music] he actually was a cohen. And he I guess from his youth he remembered some of the words of the of the blessings that the you know, the birkas kohanim, the blessing of the kohanim give. So he said, "Y'varechecha." I still remember him saying it to my father. My father having him sit down. And so I saw from this that >> [music] >> my father was uh got along well with the with the with the police precinct. My father's shul started out on the on Third Street and I believe Avenue C. I could be mistaken. Could be Avenue A or Avenue C. I I [music] forget at this point. Um and the neighborhood as as we know the neighborhood there declined. It used to be packed with with with Yidden. But it declined. Yidden, you know, Jews bought homes in the in Queens and then and Borough Park and Williamsburg. And they moved out of the Lower East Side. And therefore [music] the clientele that came in was not exactly friendly to us. And it was became almost a hazard, dangerous, to walk from our apartment under the Williamsburg Bridge to you know, cross the land [music] sea into the to my father's shul. So eventually my father called the precinct. >> [music] >> And said, "Um is there any could we have a policeman helping us? And they actually sent a policeman. When the you know when the prayer times came, the policeman would stand and guard. Um at some point the policeman would come inside the shul. We We He invited himself in because he was afraid to stand outside. >> Yeah. >> So, later on they actually had a police car which would escort us back and forth from shul at the at the times of prayer. Uh so [music] thanks you know my father had this connection with the precinct so uh >> Oh well. >> Yeah, so they they were very helpful. Uh sadly that shul was firebombed. With all the police helping us >> [music] >> one Friday night they just threw the Molotov cocktails, homemade bombs and and the shul burnt.