If you don’t fit in with your community, you put yourself in danger. Architecture is just one way of clashing with your neighbors. When the goyim turn genocidal, will your disregard of their norms be worth it?
Gothamist: Just after midnight on December 6th, a fire broke out at the home of Rabbi Zalman Zvulonov on 69th Road in Forest Hills. The two-alarm blaze could be seen from blocks away. It was the first day of Hanukkah, and the seventh arson attack in an enclave of Bukharian Jews.
Dubbed “Bukharian Broadway,” 80 percent of the population of the Cord Meyer area of Queens is made up of Bukharian immigrants, part of the approximately 60,000 Bukharian Jews living in New York, according to the Queens Jewish Community Council.
Five of the seven attacks targeted Bukharian homes (one fire occurred at an unoccupied home on 67th road, while another broke out in the former Parkway Hospital building on 113th street). All of the fires were set in buildings that were under construction and uninhabited.
Rabbi Zvulonov was in the process of expanding his four-bedroom house. According to police, the December 6th fire was a second attempt on Zvulonov’s home; the first occurred on November 15th, but was quelled before serious damages were incurred.
This time flames razed the home to blackened rubble. Several surrounding homes have also been affected by the fires, bringing the total damages to 13 buildings.
Authorities believe a single arsonist is responsible, but the spree has not been declared a crime of anti-Semitism. However, the Hate Crime Task Force was present at a closed meeting between high-ranking officials, including NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce, and Bukharian community leaders earlier this month. The head of the FDNY’s Bureau of Fire Investigation, Commander Randall Wilson, says their investigation is still ongoing.
“It’s something that we take extremely seriously,” said Melinda Katz, Queens Borough President. “The community stands together in making sure we find this arsonist that is out there, destroying not only people’s homes, but people’s lives, and people’s dreams.”
Community members and authorities alike speculate that the violent attacks may be in reaction to Bukharians’ opulent homes, which have been a subject of controversy for years because they don’t fit in with the prevailing neighborhood scale.
Glistening turquoise columns, stone gargoyles, and gold leaf iron fences clash with the more sedate romanticism of other Forest Hills houses.
