New Look For 14th Street Y

Y members find a relaxing gathering space in their newly renovated lobby, where ceiling-to-floor windows splash the new tiles and fixtures with sunlight, and a welcoming staff answers questions.Photos by Michael Datikash

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Even before he was born, 6-year-old Shane Fleming spent lots of time in the 14th Street Y’s pool, a 20-year-old neighborhood oasis that is now home to some of his favorite weekly classes.

“Shane literally took every class he could possibly take since he was born” up to the present, said his mother, and longtime Y member, Jill Shely. “He totally feels like the Y is his home.”

The Y has especially become a home to him in recent months, Shely says, as the institution underwent a complete programmatic upgrade two years ago, followed by physical overhaul this past summer.

In what used to be a drab, unwelcoming lobby, huge windows now splash sunlight into a bright blue-tiled meeting space stocked with neon yellow lounge chairs and matching coffee tables. Babysitters patiently rock babies in strollers and wait for preschool-age siblings to finish up for the day, while college students and young professionals stride through to the brand-new fitness center.

Upstairs, a group of senior citizens rehearses for their upcoming staged reading of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” and children play indoor soccer in the gymnasium.

“My hunch about what this place could be was correct,” said Stephen Hazan Arnoff, who began his work as executive director of the 14th Street Y two years ago. “The concept was to transform our infrastructure, accounting for the many, many talents of our staff and our interests in the community — it really is a diverse and vibrant community.”  Continue reading…

Not Immune From Mumps

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Stemming from an initial mumps outbreak that wreaked havoc at a Jewish camp this summer, 247 New York City residents plus 131 other state residents have since contracted the disease, which remains mostly contained among fervently Orthodox adolescent boys in pockets of New York, New Jersey and Quebec, according to official reports from the New York City and State Departments of Health.

The trigger case occurred back in June, when an 11-year-old boy returned to his Sullivan County summer camp after traveling in the United Kingdom, where an ongoing outbreak has now reached about 4,000 cases, the Centers for Disease Control reported.

From there, the mumps spread to 24 other boys at the camp and continued to plague their local communities when they returned home, and the median age of patients remains around 14. But perhaps the most frustrating news to some parents is that most of the affected patients had received their proper two-dose vaccination as children — 83 percent, according to the CDC.

“This is a very confusing issue not only for ourselves but for providers and parents,” said Cindy Schulte, vaccine-preventable disease surveillance officer at the New York State Department of Health. “If you have a population that’s fairly well but unevenly vaccinated, by logic, you’re going to end up having some disease in the effective population.” The Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine has an 85 to 91 percent efficacy rate among those who take the proper doses, she said.  Continue reading…

They’ve Got A Nit To Pick

In what Harel calls the “busy season” for nits, her LiceBusters staff carefully plucks the bugs from a young client’s hair.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Every Rosh HaShanah, as Dalya Harel welcomes friends and relatives from abroad into her home from abroad, she eagerly awaits the arrival of some other New Year favorites — apples, honey and head lice..

“It’s a very busy season,” she said. “I had guests from Israel, and I cannot tell you what they brought me.”

But these guests couldn’t have chosen a better place for their High Holy Days visit. Harel, the maven behind Lice Busters NYC, runs a thriving delousing business through her home in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where she says she receives customers from all over the country.

The crowded nature of local camps and schools, both public and private, make New York a convenient city for lice spread, according to Harel, though she says that infestations are even more prevalent in Europe and Israel, where schools don’t check students. Harel first decided to start her company in 1995, shortly after the two oldest of her nine children came home from school with lice.

“They came home and I couldn’t go to sleep at night,” she said. “You can’t sleep at night if your kids have nits in their hair.”

Harel isn’t the only leader in Brooklyn’s lice-slaying business. Her colleagues — other Orthodox women — offer equally popular delousing services throughout the densely populated borough. Some of these women include Susan Sherman at LiceBGoners, Adie Horowitz of LiCenDers and Abigail Rosenfeld, the “Lice Lady of Brooklyn.” Others include Lice Be Gone in northern New Jersey and Licebeaters, with locations in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida.

“There’s work for everybody,” Harel said.  Continue reading…

Man Of Science, Man Of Faith

Shorr, both a rabbi and a research scientist, brings God to his laboratory as he fights against cancer.

by Sharon Udasin

Staff Writer

When it comes to curing cancer, one scientist gives God all the credit as he moves one step closer to slaying the resilient killer.

Rabbi Dr. Robert Shorr, 55, the CEO of Cornerstone Pharmaceuticals, is overseeing the Phase I/II clinical trials of his newly developed cancer combatant drug, CPI-613, produced in conjunction with researchers and technology at Stony Brook University’s Long Island High Technology Incubator. Aiming to target pancreatic cancer and a wide array of other diseases, doctors are testing CPI-613 both alone and in conjunction with gemcitabine, an already standard chemotherapy treatment for pancreatic cancer — the disease that recently killed actor Patrick Swayze after a 20-month battle.

Meanwhile, as Shorr dives headlong into cancer research, the Orthodox biochemist remains a practicing rabbi, teaching students for free through the Partners in Torah over-the-phone learning service.

“I try to infuse in my professional life not [just] learning the Torah, but living it, and that’s a sanctification of Hashem’s name,” said Shorr, who finds no conflicts between matters of God and science.

For Shorr, the biggest obstacle in developing cancer drugs is the fact that no two cancer cells are the same. “Even within a single patient not all the cancer cells are going to be the same,” he said.

But Shorr’s new drug works to destroy a resource that every cancer cell needs for survival — adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy-transferring molecule that cells produce through glucose conversion.

“Without ATP, cells can’t do anything and they eventually die,” Shorr said. “What our drug does is turn off the ability of cancer cells to make ATP — a catastrophic shut-down of ATP synthesis.”   Continue reading…

Searching For The Right Genes

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Women with breast cancer have seen a modest increase in survival rates over the past decade, as both prophylactic and combative treatment options become more widely available, and as expertise in genetics and molecular biology continue to expand on the clinical level.

In this context, Jewish women in particular may benefit from genetic testing to determine whether or not they have BRCA1 and 2 gene deficiencies, which make one more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancers. Worldwide, breast cancer patients can also benefit now from hormonal chemotherapy treatments like tamoxifen, which inhibits estrogen from binding to its receptor, and herceptin, which inhibits the over-expressed HER2 cancer-causing growth factor receptor protein.

But what about those women — and men — who don’t respond to these targeted drugs, and therefore must be subjected to general chemotherapy? (While the majority of breast cancer patients are women, men also get breast cancer.)  Continue reading…

Moving On To The Next Tragedy

Not forgotten: A woman who lost a firefighter friend in the 9/11 attacks touches a plaque honoring him at a local firehouse. Getty Images

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Eight years after the Twin Towers crumbled over downtown Manhattan, rescue worker Charlie Giles still wakes up regularly with nightmares of the North Tower collapsing on top of him, enveloping his body his flames and in suffocating debris. One night recently, he even woke up to find himself throwing things.

“I said to my wife, ‘He’s in our room, he’s in our room,’” Giles remembers. “She said, ‘Who’s in our room?’ I said, ‘bin Laden.’”

Giles, now 42, was the director of Citiwide Mobile Emergency Medical Services during the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, and on that day alone he personally treated 14 victims of the attacks. Since that fateful day, Giles has accumulated 15 medical diagnoses, 30 medications and 17 hospitalizations — as well as an intense phobia of airplanes that prevents him from flying anywhere.

Debilitated by both the permanent physical damages and pervasive mental health problems from 9/11, both victims and first responders rely on a dwindling but crucial set of private foundations and government-funded programs that help cover their daily expenses. But in both the Jewish community and in all of America, 9/11-focused charities and support groups have become few and far between, with the exception of tiny scholarship funds named for individual victims. 

“There are very few organizations still providing funds/financial assistance to persons impacted by 9/11,” said Scottie Hill, director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center. “Most of the organizations in the NYC area, including the primary source of financial assistance in recent years (New York Disaster Interfaith Services), have shut down their programs due to termination of funding.”  Continue reading…

Kissing The Swine Flu Goodbye

In Israel, suggested protective measures against swine flu include a ban on shared Kiddush cups and kissing of mezuzahs.

by Sharon Udasin

Rabbis in Israel are taking a stab at the swine flu with a brand-new proposal — no kissing. A mezuzah, that is.

In a collision of ancient Jewish tradition and modern disease control, Israeli spiritual leaders are offering multiple solutions to curb the disease’s spread, whether or not a vaccine becomes available.

In a joint statement issued last week, Israel’s chief Sephardic rabbi, Shlomo Amar, and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the Shas Party, declared that Wednesday, Aug. 19 would be a nationwide fast day in an attempt to combat the swine flu. (Meanwhile, they allegedly blamed the endemic on public sinning; Rabbi Yosef had blamed Hurricane Katrina on the fact that American blacks didn’t study the Torah.)

Aside from the fast, both rabbis and doctors are taking measures to decrease disease spread through precautionary hygienic practices. Thus far, the Centers for Disease Control has documented more than 7,500 cases and 477 deaths in the U.S. About 2,000 cases have been reported in Israel, with at least five fatalities, according to Israel’s Ministry of Health. Continue reading…