‘Love Thy Neighbor’ with Collier Meyerson
The Crown Heights Riot took place thirty years ago following a car accident that killed a Black child in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Over the course of four days, rioters, whose slogan was “no justice, no peace,” pointed to rumors of discrimination by a Jewish ambulance service and the escape of the driver responsible for the child’s death. Subsequently, one Orthodox Jew was killed and dozens of others were beaten. The unrest is told in a new podcast aptly titled “Love Thy Neighbor: Four Days in Crown Heights That Changed New York.” The episodes tell the story of immigration, New York City’s first Black mayor, the rise of Rudy Giuliani and the Lubavitch Jews and Caribbean-Americans at the center of it all. Creator, writer and narrator Collier Meyerson joins to discuss exploring her own Black and Jewish identities, how the stories told in her podcast can help us understand modern dilemmas and more.