The SY Empire by Zev Chafets is an article that explains the Syrian Jewish community in Brookyln, New York. As he explains, and as shown on this map, we inhibit almost everywhere from Avenue I to Avenue V westward, and eastward from Nostrand Avenue until West 6th street with our homes. Every store that we may need is within these pirameters. We are bound by our surroundings and our laws and it is made easy by the community we built around us. Our Rabbi’s in 1935 created an Edict in Brooklyn which is a rabbinical threat of excommunication so dire and so powerful that it has fixed the true parameters of the community for generations. The goal of the Rabbis was to build an iron wall of steel separating Jews from Gentiles to prevent intermarriage. The loophole to intermarriage was conversion, and the Edict intended to close that loophole; “no male or female member of our community has the right to intermarry with non-Jews”, “The Rabbi will not perform Religious Ceremonies for such unkosher couples and the congregations premises will be banned for them for use of any religious or social nature”. No Jewish community in the world other than 2 small Syrian congregations in Mexico and Argentina has ever had such an extreme rule. “People have to make a choice,” Rabbi Jakie Kassin says. “Sure, it’s rough sometimes. But I’ll tell you something — we should be an example to others. We’re building the No. 1 Jewish community on planet Earth, right here in Brooklyn.” This community is so close knit that if a person falters in business, other men step in. It is even common that people in the same business, direct competitors, raise money to put the man back on his feet. It is easy to understand how close knit we are by looking at this map and seeing how close in distance we are from each other and our stores, and you can concur that we are even more united emotionally because of these aspects of the community.