Community Corner

Ateret Cohanim marked Yom Yerushalayim with its annual New York dinner held this past Tuesday, June 4, at Hewlett Harbor’s stunning The Seawane Club with tables of local Jewish supporters. Widely recognized as Yerushalayim’s shield, Ateret Cohanim continues its mission born 44 years ago to strengthen Jewish roots around the Torah citadels that dot the Old City in a pioneering effort to revitalize Jewish life by families establishing their homes there. Strolling through the modern-day Moslem and Christian Quarters, one finds budding Jewish life on its streets once again, namely in the communities of Abu Tor, Kfar HaShiloach/HaTeimanim, Maaleh HaZeitim, and Kidmat Zion. Ateret Cohanim, nearly single-handedly, has reinvigorated Torah on land barren of its loftiness for some 2,000 years.

The weather was perfect on Sunday, May 26, as runners and walkers gathered in the public school yard near the Young Israel of Jamaica Estates for the 22^nd annual L’Chaim 5K Run/Walk for Israel. The Margaret Tietz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center was the main sponsor, as always. Boots for Israel, a chesed organization that has sent 52,000 pairs of new boots with personalized notes to Israeli soldiers, was set up next to a table for the organization Israel Chesed Center, which also sends gear to soldiers.

Congregation Etz Chaim filled with community members on Wednesday evening, June 5 (Yom Yerushalayim), anxious to hear from the speaker, Shabbos Kestenbaum, a graduate student at Harvard University. As part of the Yom Yerushalayim program at the shul, Shabbos Kestenbaum spoke about his extremely challenging experiences of anti-Semitism at Harvard Law School this year.

On Wednesday evening, May 29, community members gathered at the Schwartz Brothers-Jeffer Memorial Chapels for a fascinating lecture by Nick Hirshon, author, journalism professor, and media historian.

This writer had the honor to interview Staff Sergeant Mordechay Shenveld, an IDF soldier and accomplished violinist, who was wounded in Gaza. He is someone with a mission and, baruch Hashem, he has a beautiful message he wants to spread, and he is speaking all over North America and Israel. He spoke in Montreal, Kingston (Ontario), Miami, Chicago, and New Jersey, and he is heading to Los Angeles.

Can you imagine adopting six babies with Down syndrome?

On Sunday night, May 19, an overflow crowd of community women gathered at the home of Sima Mandelbaum to show support for the Erna Lindenfeld Hachnosas Kallah Fund of Queens and to hear an inspiring lecture paying tribute to the beloved mothers in our lives. Mrs. Brenda Katina, a mother par excellence, shared her experience of raising six special-needs children with Down syndrome.