Local

Blending mourning with resolve, the Queens Jewish Center marked Israel’s Memorial and Independence Days. Four local rabbis, a Jewish media leader, and more than 60 attendees honored the difficulties and sacrifices. Rabbi Dovid M. Cohen, CEO of The Algemeiner, a free online Jewish newspaper, was the keynote speaker. Cohen received s’michah from Yeshiva University and was a pulpit rabbi for 18 years in Manhattan, New Jersey, and the Five Towns.

I first learned about Yehonatan “Yoni” Asayag through a group email sent by the Forest Hills Jewish Center. The message referenced his involvement in a presentation by Purple Fox, an organization run by Special Forces soldiers that provides support to families of fallen IDF soldiers. Purple Fox helps these families navigate loss and regain stability, offering educational scholarships, mental health and PTSD treatment, and direct financial and material assistance.

 Arnold Newfield, a Holocaust survivor born in a transit camp in 1942, and Rabbi Dr. Elimelech Gottlieb, who has a master’s degree in Holocaust Studies, were the main speakers at the annual Yom HaShoah commemoration at the Young Israel of Forest Hills.

About 300 people took home free Kosher for Passover food packages at the Forest Hills Jewish Center on Sunday, April 6. Including their families, an estimated 1,000 people benefited.

The authors of the book 40 Stories, 40 Heroes, which tells stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things on the Gaza border on October 7, 2023, spoke to more than 50 people at the Queens Jewish Center in Forest Hills on Sunday, November 2.

The annex in Amsterdam, where Anne Frank, her parents, sister, and three other Jews hid from the Nazis, has been recreated at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.