Community Corner

Elected officials participate in Met Council’s Rosh HaShanah food distribution
for the Jewish poor across the City of New York

 The largest free kosher food distribution in America takes place over the course of one month – right here in New York. In preparation for Rosh HaShanah, over 900 community volunteers and 20 elected officials joined the Met Council these past weeks at 82 locations in Queens, Borough Park, Flatbush, Manhattan, and Staten Island to distribute fresh food packages for over 100,000 New Yorkers in need of food for Yom Tov.

The National Council of Young Israel (NCYI) recently called on Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders to sever his ties with Linda Sarsour, who was recently named a surrogate for his campaign.

Last Monday night, members of the Kew Gardens Hills community gathered at Dr. and Mrs. Sam and Avigayil Straus’ home to benefit PUAH, an invaluable chesed organization.

“By David a psalm, the earth is to Hashem and its fullness, the inhabited land and those who dwell in it.” Many have the minhag to say chapter 24 of T’hilim on Rosh HaShanah night, before the completion of davening Maariv. The Aron Kodesh is opened, and each verse is recited by the chazan and repeated by the congregation. It is to be said slowly and with great emotion.

Whew! The marathon is over. What, you didn’t know there was a marathon? Well, we at Netzach Outreach felt like we were running one this past summer. The summer of 2019 was a whirlwind of activity and accomplishments for the Jewish public-school students of Queens, New York. Baruch Hashem, we feel that due to their hard work, the Queens community surely has significant merits to bring to the fore when Rosh HaShanah arrives – in less than two weeks.

The Jewish Communal Fund (JCF), the largest Jewish donor-advised fund in the country, distributed a record $456 million in grants to charities in all sectors during the 2019 fiscal year ending June 30, 2019 – a five-percent increase from 2018. JCF fundholders recommended a record number of grants – 63,000 – to thousands of charitable organizations, an 11-percent increase from 2018. The average grant amount was $7,227.51.