Queensborough Community College’s new Holocaust Resource Center. Sharon Udasin

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Huddled inside a bus station in Bayside, Queens, last December, Paul Cavalieri shuddered in the cold air and

watched the snow come down around him, hoping his bus would soon roll into sight. But then his brain reeled back 15 minutes to his interview with Queens Holocaust survivor Ethel Katz, who told him of her two-year escape from the Nazis. It was a perilous trek that at one point took her through knee-deep snow in nothing but a nightgown.
“I could sit here at this bus stop and freeze for a little while,” Cavalieri remembers deciding. “It put my problems into perspective.”

Along with other students, Cavalieri tells a similar version of the story on an LCD touch-screen panel in an exhibition at the new

Holocaust Resource Center at Queensborough Community College. The building, a starkly modern glass structure, stands out on a campus of sprawling parking lots, nondescript buildings and mobile classrooms.

Twenty-four years ago, the original center — essentially a basement library — grew out of a course taught by William Shulman, who said that his students needed a place to broaden their Holocaust research. There it languished until Queensborough Community College President Eduardo Martí took over in 2000 and decided that a cramped cellar was no place for Holocaust resources. With the help of the center’s director, Arthur Flug, he obtained funding from the state, a $1 million gift from Harriet Kupferberg and $2.8 million in private donations to open a new, 9,000-square-feet building last month.

“He saw the potential of connecting the Holocaust to young college students,” said Owen Bernstein, 87, a board member of the center who donated personal funds as well, said of Martí.  Continue reading…

_ _

Video of my experience there:

Young Jews in Long Island City celebrate Sukkot on a condo rooftop. Rabbi Zev Wineberg

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

When Cara Bernstein walked down the aisle a month ago to meet her fiancé under the chupah, she knew her wedding day was a crossroads not only in her life, but in the life of her Queens synagogue, which had not hosted a bride and groom for 22 years.

Nearly the entire congregation at Astoria Center of Israel celebrated her marriage that day, whether or not they knew the couple personally.

“A fellow congregant told me that I’m part of a new wave of congregants,” said Bernstein, who is 38.

Astoria Center of Israel is just one pocket of many in northwestern Queens where residents say they are seeing a revitalization of their historic Jewish populations. For 20- and 30-somethings who crave cheaper rents in close proximity to Manhattan, Astoria has become somewhat of a mecca, with popular restaurants, shops and nightlife options.

In Long Island City, brand-new yet pricey condominiums are attracting a slightly older crowd — young families in their 30s and 40s who find the East River waterfront an attractive place to raise small children. Other young singles and families are choosing nearby Jackson Heights and Sunnyside, which offer even more affordable real estate than the riverside neighborhoods.

Yet as young people — both Jews and non-Jews alike — continue to flock to northwestern Queens, they often lack the infrastructure necessary to accommodate Jewish community, area experts agree.

“I felt very good about Jewish life beginning here, but I don’t see any push to set up synagogues there,” said Jeff Gottlieb, president of the Queens Jewish Historical Society. “I see a lot of young Jewish people there, but I don’t see any real sparkle of any organizational Jewish life.”

Spiritual leaders like the Astoria Center’s Rabbi Jonathan Pearl are trying to combat this notion and reinvigorate their aging populations by pulling in younger crowds.

“There was an amazing sense of revitalization coming back into the sanctuary when we had a marriage taking place here,” said Rabbi Pearl, who has been at the synagogue for a little over a year. “The place was full.”

Last Sunday, Astoria Center of Israel received landmark designation status from the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places, for its beautiful interior décor and history of civic leadership since the 1920s. Today, the Conservative synagogue is egalitarian with about 100 members, most of whom are the elderly remnants of a neighborhood that was once home to seven synagogues and multiple kosher butchers.  Continue reading…

Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin is trying to revive Israel Center’s youth while tending to her aging flock. Michael Datikash

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Claire Heymann, an Auschwitz survivor who grew up in a strictly Orthodox home in Germany, had a bit of trouble adjusting to the idea of an egalitarian synagogue.
But a female rabbi? Don’t ask.

About five years ago, when northeastern Queens shul memberships began to dwindle and local purse strings tightened, Heymann’s traditional “Conservadox” synagogue, the Israel Center of Hillcrest Manor, made the decision to merge with two other local congregations — the Electchester Jewish Center and the Conservative Synagogue of Jamaica Estates. Together, they formed the fully egalitarian Israel Center of Conservative Judaism in Flushing Meadows, which now has a total of approximately 265 families.

In making the decision to merge, “We had to make a choice, [so] that we shouldn’t sell the synagogue to a Korean church,” said Heymann, 85.

After the merger came the big change. Last summer, the Israel Center hired a female rabbi — the first female rabbi at any Conservative synagogue in Queens.

Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin, who will be officially installed by the temple board on Sunday, has changed the minds and won the hearts of many aging synagogue members who, like Heymann, say they were skeptical of having a woman as their leader.

“When [the synagogue] went egalitarian, I had a tough time. When I heard that we were going to get a woman rabbi, that bothered me,” Heymann said, noting that 27 members were vehemently against hiring Rabbi Bodzin because of her relatively young age, 35, and gender. “All I can tell you [is that] I love her now,” Heymann said. “I have a very good connection with her.”  Continue reading…