The mother of the Chofetz Chaim was once asked why she thought she had been zocheh to have a son such as the Chofetz Chaim. She could not think of anything she had done to warrant such a son. They pressed her and said you must have done something special. She said the only thing she could think of was before she married, her mother had told her that any free minute she had, e.g., while waiting for the soup to boil or some such opportunity, she should use to say a few p’rakim of T’hilim. This is what she did, and she felt that in the z’chus of the T’hilim she said, she was zocheh to have a son such as the Chofetz Chaim ( www.aneinu.com ).

On Wednesday, September 30, Congregation Etz Chaim of Kew Gardens Hills geared up for a COVID-19-compliant lulav and esrog sales pick-up in preparation for the Sukkos holiday. Siblings Chani, Shimmy, and Levi Orenbuch arrived in front of the shul with sidewalk chalk and a tape measure at the suggestion of the shul rav, Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg.

This past Thursday afternoon hundreds of Queens residents were treated to free masks at a communal giveaway hosted in the outdoor dining seating at Holy Schnitzel of Queens on Main Street in Kew Gardens Hills. Queens Borough Safety Patrol - Shmira, the Chazaq Organization, the Office of the Queens Borough President, the Office of the Mayor of NYC, Assembly Member Daniel Rosenthal, the Queens Jewish Link, the Bukharian Jewish, along with a generous donation from Yeshiva Tiferes Moshe provided an ample supply of masks and promotional marketing for a beautiful distribution in a region designated a red zone by Governor Cuomo.

Before Yom Kippur, widespread media coverage depicted predominately Orthodox Jewish areas of New York City as hotbeds for a renewed spread of COVID-19. In turn, City officials opted to announce the enforcement of face coverings and an institution of fines across nine of the city’s 146 ZIP Codes seeing the troubling clustered uptick.