Forward: The granddaughter of one of Brooklyn’s most influential Hasidic rebbes, or rabbis, died of a reported drug overdose early this week, according to an Israeli newspaper, sending the tight-knit ultra-Orthodox community into mourning and raising alarms among advocates who warn of a crisis among young people on its margins.
Feige Greenwald’s death, first reported in English yesterday by the Israeli website Arutz Sheva, was the 60th drug-related death in the New York-area Orthodox community over the past year, according to the Orthodox social service group Amudim.
A spokesperson for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told the Forward that the cause and manner of Greenwald’s death are still under investigation.
Greenwald was the granddaughter of Grand Rabbi Yaakov Chizkiah Greenwald, who leads the Williamsburg, Brooklyn-based Puppa Hasidic group. Her father, Rabbi Pinchas Greenwald, leads the Puppa community in Monsey, New York. According to social media reports, Feige Greenwald, 22, had lived outside of the Hasidic community in the time before her death.
