Community Corner

On Tuesday evening, May 19, the community members gathered at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills for an inspiring program featuring the well-known speaker, Rabbi Joey Haber. Hosted by Chazaq, Ohel, and Project Inspire, the event was dedicated in memory of Mr. Jack Friedman z”l by his family. The evening also served as the official introduction to Ohel’s new clinic in the heart of Queens.

On Tuesday night, April 28, Chazaq hosted an uplifting shiur at the Torah Center of Hillcrest with Rabbi Benzion Klatzko, Founder of Shabbat.com and a well-known speaker. Rabbi Klatzko began: “We are more than halfway toward receiving the Torah. We’re looking forward to it.” The Chofetz Chaim taught that every word of Torah is equal to the total number of 613 mitzvos.

 On Tuesday evening, May 12, the Navigating the Medical System Lecture Series featured a virtual presentation by Dr. Srikanth Reddy Boddu, MD, MSc, MRCS, FRCR, the Director of Neurointerventional Surgery at New York-Presbyterian Queens.

“We planned our big vacation eight months in advance. The plan was to spend one week in Italy in early February with my sister,” Renee Labovitz shared of her and her husband David’s itinerary. “Then, we scheduled two weeks in Eretz Yisrael with the Eretz Yisrael Movement Tour (EYMT). The finale was meant to be a week in Kiryat Arba, where we would spend Purim with our friends, Melody and Yosef Hartuv.”

On Thursday night, April 30, Chazaq hosted an uplifting shiur at Congregation Charm Circle featuring Rabbi Shaya Cohen, Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshiva Zichron Aryeh. Rabbi Cohen opened by noting that more money is spent on the pursuit of happiness today than on almost anything else, yet the world remains an unhappy place. We see the evidence of this in high rates of suicide, substance abuse, divorce, and abuse.

Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, shared that “we survivors decided to tell the tale of what happened because we want the world to be a better world. We want people to learn and to remember.”