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When I was a young yeshivah student, I came to study in Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah in Kew Gardens, Queens. One aspect that made attending this institution especially appealing to me was that at its head was Rabbi Zelig Epstein. Before knowing him personally, I knew he had studied in the Mir, back when it was in Poland, and that he was married to the great Rabbi Shimon Shkop’s granddaughter. I had also heard that he had attended the Yeshiva in Kelm, famed for its refinement of students’ character and commitment to Rabbi Yisrael Salanter’s musar movement. Having the privilege of being linked to all that, and especially being linked to a world that is no longer – pre-Holocaust Europe – was especially meaningful to me. And so I attended the Yeshiva, making a conscious effort to get every opportunity I can to spend time with Rabbi Epstein, or as he was known by so many: “Reb Zelig.”

In a community where families and children are the main elements of life, the disappointment of infertility comes with the difficulties of the high cost of treatment, finding the right doctors, and emotional support in the process. “My niece and nephew are the results of Bonei Olam. It is a tremendous organization,” said Hudi Newman, who hosted its founder, Rabbi Shlomo Bochner, at his Kew Gardens Hills home last week for a backyard fundraiser. “It has a special place in my family’s heart.”

Mrs. Dorothy Kellner celebrated a landmark birthday at the Boulevard ALP, turning 100 this past Friday, July 19. Mrs. Kellner stood behind one of three huge birthday cakes from Aron’s Kissena Farms that said “100” on them.

Over the past week, klal Yisrael united in prayers upon hearing about a rabbi in Virginia who jumped into the ocean to save a 13-year-old student and then was swept up by a rip current and out to sea himself. We held our collective breath during the dramatic five days of the search for him, first as a rescue mission led by the US Coast Guard, and eventually in a recovery mission. On Sunday afternoon, his body was finally found by a Misaskim boat off the coast of North Carolina. But who was this rabbi, previously unknown to klal Yisrael at large, who gave his life to save a student, who united us in prayer?

When Rabbi Yechiel Benari first founded a yeshivah for college students, he knew it had to be warm, it had to be goal oriented, and it needed educators that embraced the path of Torah alongside parnasah. On Tuesday evening, July 2, community members, yeshivah supporters, and students celebrated the fourth year of Yeshivas Toras Halachah reaching those goals.

How do you honor and pay tribute to true pillars of a community? To properly thank leaders who have dedicated the past 30 years to an extended family of over a thousand? To capture the heartfelt emotion and feelings of generations of families? The Young Israel of Jamaica Estates decided to plan a Shabbos filled with programming and events designed to express the community’s love and appreciation to the Hochbergs. The name “YIJE Family Reunion Shabbat” was chosen to depict the sentiment of the weekend.