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Today on Tablet

by
Marc Tracy
December 14, 2011

You’re probably familiar with the Shomrim and the Shmira, the groups of Lubavitcher volunteer (read: unofficial) policemen who patrol heavily Jewish neighborhoods, mostly in Brooklyn but also in several other United States cities. Today in Tablet Magazine, Matthew Shaer tells the story of their founding as the Crown Heights Maccabees in the crime-ridden summer of 1964 under the charismatic Samuel Schrage. Schrage and the Maccabees are dead, but their legacy lives on in the Shomrim and the Shmira—each of which claims to be the true heir and doesn’t really much like the other. Of course.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.