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Last Sunday, while a group of Yeshiva University students and faculty were boarding a flight to Vienna to assist Ukrainian refugees displaced by the Russian invasion, their school hosted two speakers tasked with narrating accounts of despotic regimes, so that their crimes are not repeated in our time. Too late for that, as homes, schools, and hospitals are deliberately targeted by Russia in its effort to demoralize Ukrainian resistance.

“We are here. We are in Kyiv. We are defending Ukraine,” were the bold words of Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky this past Shabbos in a recorded video where he stood alongside his leading ministers.

Many young couples have made the move from Queens to West Hempstead seeking space and a backyard. In the coming months, Rabbi Yaakov Abramovitz, a native of Kew Gardens Hills and a regular columnist at Queens Jewish Link, will be leaving his post as an Assistant Rabbi at Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills to take up the same title at the Young Israel of West Hempstead.

Political redemption on Long Island is the story of losses and comebacks. With four-term Rep. Kathleen Rice stepping down at the end of the year, former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, 52, announced her run for the Fourth Congressional District last week. “The people of this town know me. I’m a moderate Democrat who will deliver for the residents,” she said.

Before the suburban boom, Jews on Long Island operated small shops, worked on farms and in factories, and built the foundation for what would later be the nation’s largest suburban Jewish population. Last week, Plainview resident Brad Kolodny released his new book, The Jews of Long Island: 1705-1918, which documents the history of the first Jewish settlers on Long Island.

He entered office at a young age, and after 17 years in Albany, Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, 48, is hoping that the seniority of those years will be recognized by voters for the clout that it brings.