Community Corner

The United States Supreme Court today issued a landmark ruling that positively impacts religious schools’ ability to participate in state aid programs. The Court ruled that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause prohibits states from discriminating not only against schools that identify as religious, but also those that actively teach religious subjects. This ruling eases the way for state aid to flow to parents who choose to send their children to religious schools.

David HaMelech says: “The sound of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous... Open for me the gates of righteousness, I will enter them and thank G-d” (T’hilim 118:15, 19).  The word “ohel” [“tent”] signifies a non-permanent dwelling. A “bayis” [house] is a permanent dwelling. Rabbi Frand explains that the reason there is rejoicing and salvation, enjoyment and contentment, in the lives of the righteous is that their existence in this world is like that of a tent – temporary. In this world, we have work to do and mitzvos that must be performed. But our physical surroundings are only temporary dwellings – tents.

Scenes from the JFK Regular Democratic Club meeting held this past Thursday evening, June 16, at the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills.

After five years at the Young Israel of Forest Hills, Rabbi Ashie and Rebbetzin Elana Schreier are going back to where they started: the Five Towns. Rabbi Schreier will become Assistant Rabbi at the Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (Orthodox Union), the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization, applauded the US Supreme Court’s ruling declaring unconstitutional the State of Maine’s policy that prohibits parents from using state tuition assistance payments at religious high schools. The ruling is in the case of Carson v. Makin with the majority opinion (6-3) authored by Chief Justice Roberts.

Hidden Sparks, the leading nonprofit focused on providing Jewish day school teachers with the tools to support struggling students in mainstream classrooms, is participating in a groundbreaking partnership with UJA-Federation of New York to offer their first training program on “Differentiated Instruction.”