Community Corner

The corner of 172^nd Street and 73^rd Avenue in Fresh Meadows has an official name: Ilyau Aronov Corner, honoring the builder of the Bukharian Jewish community in this section of Queens. Last Sunday, Councilman Rory Lancman made the renaming official at a ceremony that revealed the street sign carrying the name.

The shul with a heart in the center of Forest Hills, through its overall membership, is the story of Jews in New York exemplifying the successive Jewish immigration waves and economic conditions. Through the decades, the constants were its German minhagim and the warmth of its rabbis that reflected in the membership. “It is with great thanks to G-d Almighty, and to our dedicated community, that we celebrate our 80^th anniversary,” said Rabbi Yossi Mendelson, mara d’asra of Congregation Machane Chodosh.

Taking no vote for granted, Kew Gardens Hills supporters of Rep. Grace Meng hosted her for an early fundraiser, highlighting her voting record and the very real threat posed by leftists within the Democratic Party who are promising to run primary challengers for every local seat, city, state, and federal. “Over the last six months, we’ve seen how important the political process is,” said Queens NORPAC Director David Steinberg. “We are challenged in this community and region by the fringe element trying to unseat candidates that we support.”

On the lengthy drive from the city line in Lake Success to the Montauk Lighthouse, Plainview resident Brad Kolodny spent four years documenting the synagogues of Long Island. “They represent a microcosm of American Jewish life.”

The growing chorus of Congressional Democrats critical of President Donald Trump’s policies was on display last week when Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan circulated a letter among his colleagues expressing opposition to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s assertion that Israeli communities built across the former Green Line are not in violation of international law. Rather than exemplifying one point of disagreement, the letters listed four other examples of Trump’s shifting of longstanding American principles concerning Israel and the Palestinians.

In the quarter century since he immigrated to New York from Uzbekistan, Eliyahu Rakhminov deservedly earned his reputation as a hardworking and observant family man who maintained a daily presence at Bet Midrash TOV, a Kew Gardens Hills synagogue popular among Sephardic Jews. Last Saturday night, after the end of Shabbos, Rakhminov was fatally struck by a car as he was crossing Jewel Avenue near 140^th Street. “Hatzolah arrived almost immediately to revive him, but he was dead,” said Moshe Verschleiser, who lives on the block and witnessed the scene. “He was taken to the hospital but could not be revived.”