Community Corner

Please recite Psalms 20, 30, 88, 121, and 130.

Yosef ben Esther Gittel

Chaim Avraham ben Shifrah Zisel

As Rosh HaShanah approached, many of us were busy planning our davening, our meals, and getting our thoughts together.

What do Houston, Miami, Brooklyn, The Five Towns and Lakewood all have in common? All of them were cities that participated in Dirshu’s momentous Yom Limud U’Tefillah to commemorate the yartzeit of the Chofetz Chaim and all that he stood for. They joined hundreds of other communities in every continent aside from Antarctica, in a massive demonstration of Jewish unity.

The 27^th of Av marked the first yahrzeit of Eugen Gluck z”l, a pillar of the Jewish community. Mr. Gluck (second from right), himself the quintessential Jewish activist, particularly for Bet-El institutions, honored Dr. Paul Brody (next to him) and Dr. Joseph Frager (second from left), as they received the Israel Leadership Award at the inaugural dinner of Chazaq, in August 2013, at Leonard’s of Great Neck. They are flanking Guest Speaker Michael Reagan, stepson of President Ronald Reagan. Chazaq boasts “Building A Stronger Future,” under the leadership of Rabbis Ilan and Yaniv Meirov (at far left and right).

The Kew Gardens Hills Shofar Blowing Initiative was the brainchild of neighborhood resident Mark Mittel, who has long blown shofar at local senior centers and a local minyan. With many homebound due to COVID-19 restrictions, Mittel felt there was an obvious solution. “Many in our area can blow shofar; we just needed to arrange a system to alert the community and find members from the neighborhood to rise to the occasion,” explained Mittel, who also stepped in for Jack Meth to lead the 72^nd Avenue shofar blowing.

Internet outage fixed after Congresswoman intervened with Postal Service and AT&T

US Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) announced last Friday that she helped to restore Internet service to the Kew Gardens Hills Post Office, which will once again allow all customers to use services at the facility.