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Rabbi helped launch and maintain popular ‘young families’ shul and community

Four years ago, the basement of the Yeshiva of Central Queens experienced a quiet Shabbos for the first time in many years. Kehilas Ishei Yisrael had disbanded after Rabbi Shmuel Marcus, and many of its members followed him to the Young Israel of Queens Valley. A sizable number of young families seeking to maintain the minyan in that space adopted a new name. Kehilah Torah Temimah was then founded, and secured this site with Rabbi Elan Segelman as its rav.

With the hot summer weather, layers of clothing are shed, and the world is reopening, as the pandemic loses its grip on society. It’s perhaps a fitting time for Netflix to release My Unorthodox Life, the latest example in a genre of books, documentaries, and now a reality show, about formerly Orthodox Jews. “It’s hard to imagine that just a few years ago I was living in an extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and then I packed up and left,” Julia Haart said. “You can say that we have a very interesting life.”

With housing values in West Hempstead approaching the prices of Queens, young families are branching out in all directions across the suburban landscape. Fortunately, earlier generations of rabbis envisioned the growth of the community far beyond Hempstead Avenue, the town’s main road.

The countercultural ice cream company, famous for “punny” flavor names, took a dip into Middle Eastern politics on Monday in a tweet announcing its boycott of Israel. “We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). We also hear and recognize the concerns shared with us by our fans and trusted partners.”

This past Sunday, nearly 600 people gathered in Battery Park under red and white banners, chanting for democracy in Belarus. They sang popular protest songs, collected donations for the legal defense of political prisoners, and heard Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya speak as part of her first visit to America.

With a cast holding up his left arm, Rabbi Shlomo Noginsky, 41, of Boston, spoke in Hebrew at a rally against anti-Semitism on Sunday in Washington. “I was born in the Soviet Union, in the city of St. Petersburg; I remember how even as a young child I experienced terrible anti-Semitism. Never in my darkest dreams did I imagine that I would experience it here in the United States.”