Community Corner

Just days after Bagels & Co. was vandalized during Shavuos in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime, more than 300 people gathered outside the popular Union Turnpike café to deliver a message of support, solidarity, and Jewish pride. Israeli and American flags waved proudly above the storefront as a crowd packed the sidewalk at the corner of 188th Street. The event drew community leaders, elected officials and their representatives, rabbis, activists, students, NYPD personnel, and Queens Shmira members, reflecting the broad support Bagels & Co. received from across Queens.

 Walk past 71-12 Park Avenue today, and you will see a massive development site. The Park Avenue in question is not Manhattan’s famous boulevard, but a modest Queens street tucked between Parsons Boulevard and 71^st Avenue. For years, this parcel was simply an empty lot to the families pushing strollers past it. But land in Queens has a long memory. This site, the future home of a residential project known as Utopia Living, tells a much bigger story: old wetlands, postwar housing, union electricians building their own neighborhood, Orthodox Jewish institutions taking root, and the modern pressure to find a place to live in a city where housing remains historically tight.

Just days before tens of thousands would flood Fifth Avenue in a sea of blue and white, a packed social hall at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills became the setting for a different kind of mobilization. Co-hosted by Arutz Sheva–Israel National News and Chazaq, the gathering brought together Israeli ministers and local activists to address the growing global campaign of misinformation targeting Israel and the Jewish people. Guests entering the hall were greeted by an archaeological exhibit showcasing discoveries from Judea and Samaria, reinforcing the day’s focus on the Jewish connection to the land.

At the corner of Union Turnpike and 188^th Street, Bagels & Co. is a staple for families in Fresh Meadows, Jamaica Estates, Hillcrest, Holliswood, and Hollis Hills. The establishment is recognizable for its chalav Yisrael menu, steady stream of customers, and the Israeli and American flags proudly displayed above its storefront. In recent years, however, those flags have appeared to place the storefront in the crosshairs of those seeking to intimidate visibly Jewish establishments.

Avrumie Itzkowitz Hy”d was my personal friend – someone I was privileged to daven alongside on the Yamim Nora’im at the Agudath Israel of Kew Gardens Hills. Throughout the year, his steady place of t’filah was Rav Noach Isaac Oelbaum’s Khal Nachlas Yitzchok, where his presence was part of the daily rhythm of the k’hilah.

At The Seawane Club in Hewlett, the unfurling of the Flag of Yerushalayim set the tone for the night. It was a simple moment, but it captured much of what the evening stood for: Yerushalayim is not merely a memory. It is built, defended, restored, and lived.