Crown Heights gathers at windows to cheer just-married couple
A couple marrying in Crown Heights found their well wishers at the windows of the neighborhood as they cruised by with the top down. Image by twitter
By Helen Chernikoff March 20, 2020
Couples who are marrying amid coronavirus have had to slash their guest lists. Nowhere is this trend more visible than Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood that’s the headquarters of the global Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
As couple got married today in Crown Heights. Because no one could come to their wedding, they instead drove around the neighborhood and asked everyone to sing and dance with them from their homes. pic.twitter.com/MdwOys4MyI
— Mordechai Lightstone (@Mottel) March 19, 2020
The world headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway — often referred to just as “770” — was shuttered by the virus for the first time in its history. Normally, the building and the surrounding area is a favorite location for weddings among Chabad’s international flock. During the times of year when weddings are popular, and permissible according to Jewish law, commuters arriving home on the subway might ascend to street level to witness sprawling crowds celebrating a wedding right next to 770 several nights a week.
A newly married couple cruised the Crown Heights streets looking for cheers and congratulations, and got them — coronavirus-style. Image by Courtesy of Leah Zagelbaum
One couple held a wedding there Wednesday with the usual accoutrements of music, flower girls and confetti — but far fewer guests than normal. By Thursday night, another couple determined to receive their due in good cheer decided on a different strategy: They took to the streets in a convertible, after disseminating their planned route.
From the video, at least, it seems they got what they needed.
As a public service during this pandemic, the Forward is providing free, unlimited access to all coronavirus articles. If you’d like to support our independent Jewish journalism, click here to make a donation.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
