Iconic Williamsburg: Chaptzem! Chronicles of Shomrim’s Founding

YS Gold 

Readers of Williamsburg365 are surely well-familiar with the Shomrim organization and their incredible work to keep the community safe. Stories abound with the hard work and downright heroism of its members who stop at nothing to apprehend criminals and keep watch over the community and its most vulnerable. 

But how did the community look before Shomrim came onto the scene? How did the community deal with crime, which was rampant and untamed in those days? 

Heshy Rubenstein, a native of Williamsburg, a founder of Boro Park Shomrim and founder of Dee Voch Magazine and the Yizkor Foundation traced the origins of the organization, all the way to its current form as a legendary institution. 

Like everything else in Williamsburg, it was built by Holocaust survivors.  

“There was a Yid in Williamsburg by the name of Reb Moshe Hoffman—a Holocaust survivor who lost a wife and children before the war,” Heshy remembers. “He was a true oheiv Yisroel through and through… He would come to every wedding (before the days when there would be an official ma’ariv announcement) and announce “ma’ariv, ma’ariv!” during the break… he was a real doer. 

One day, Reb Moshe left his home on Penn Street, on the way to his business on Lee Avenue, when he was horrified to see a Yid laying on the floor all bloodied up… he had been attacked unprovokedly by a few hooligans who jumped out of a car and beat him senseless. 

Reb Moshe immediately decided to found a group of community patrolmen. He purchased a few enormous radios, and would keep them in his home. Members of the community would come by to pick up a radio in the evening, and keep their eyes open overnight. “Reb Moshe and his sons would remain awake the entire night,” Heshy recalls, “and my friends and I as well would join the patrol.”  

Heshy remembers a story from the early days when a Yid who worked in Landau’s restaurant owned a food cart where he would sell hot dogs and other take home foods was slashed in the face during a holdup. “Today, you call into the Shomrim hotline. But then, you yelled “chaptzem!” and everyone came running,” Heshy recalls. “Did we run after that sheigetz…and we pursued him until the BQE, where we caught up with him and apprehended him.” 

There were many unprovoked attacks in those days. There were many instances of thefts as well, Heshy recalls. “There was a time when a Yid could not walk into Penn Street between Bedford and Wythe Avenue. Rutledge Street was a little better… but it was a no-go zone for a Yid,” he remembers—and Reb Moshe Hoffman’s founding of this organization did much to improve the situation of life for Williamsburg’s Yidden. 

Boro Park Shomrim was founded in 1988—an entire saga in and of itself—but the seeds for community patrol within our heimishe communities were planted right here in Williamsburg of yore.