News

In the week preceding Shabbas Shuvah, the daily chart of coronavirus hospitalizations shared by Governor Andrew Cuomo showed a rise in patients. On Tuesday, September 22, there were 470, and a week later there were 571, with more than one percent of people tested statewide reporting positive results. “Twenty ZIP Codes average a positive test rate of five percent – about five times the statewide average,” he wrote. “We know how this virus spreads and we know how to stop the spread. Local governments MUST enforce compliance.”

With most City Council Members facing term limits in 2021, many of them have begun searching for their next jobs before their terms expire. The political news site City & State reported on Thursday that Councilman Rory Lancman is seeking a position in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration, citing unnamed sources close to Lancman.

In his daily briefing on Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that six neighborhoods will be subject to a hyperlocal testing and tracing effort on account of an uptick in positive cases. Coinciding with the week between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, these locations are identified with Orthodox Jews: Borough Park, Midwood, Flatbush, Williamsburg, Far Rockaway, and Kew Gardens.

The street corner at the heart of Kew Gardens Hills is now an open-air gallery covering a wall from ground to the roof. “I went to the Wynwood Walls in Florida, an open-air mural display, and I said to my wife that I wanted to do this on my walls,” said Michael Feldstein, who owns the dental office on the northeast corner of Main Street and Jewel Avenue.

The spotty Internet service at the Kew Gardens Hills post office on Main Street in the past month confirms what many local residents have experienced for years. “I’m not worried about money orders personally, it’s just one of many transactions and services they are unable to provide as a result of this incompetence,” Ephraim Shapiro commented.

For many young families in Kew Gardens Hills, Yair and Chana Leah Matan were the engines that moved the community. Their involvement in Kehilas Ishei Yisrael established that synagogue as a place for serious davening and exciting events. Likewise, when its rabbi and membership joined the Young Israel of Queens Valley in 2017, they worked on the transition that made the younger members feel welcome at their new shul.