Alvin Kass, a revered rabbi who was the youngest chaplain in New York Police Department history and who went on to become its longest-serving, died on Oct. 29 in Manhattan. He was 89. Rabbi Kass, the department’s chief chaplain, had intended to become a lawyer. He was just two weeks away from beginning his first year at Harvard Law School on a scholarship, when he decided to transfer to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New [...]
Arline Bronzaft, a pre-eminent environmental psychologist who studied the effects of urban noise, suggesting that one reason New York City never sleeps is its cacophony of glaring car horns, ear-splitting pneumatic drills, screeching subway car wheels, gluttonous garbage trucks, warbling sirens and loud, inconsiderate neighbors, died on Oct. 29 in Manhattan. She was 89. For five decades, Dr. Bronzaft argued that noise was not only exasperating but also harmful to people’s physical and emotional well-being, [...]
Sid Davidoff, a lawyer who joined John V. Lindsay’s youth-driven campaign for mayor of New York in 1965 and, after victory in the election, became one of Lindsay’s chief lieutenants in City Hall, died on Nov. 16 in the Dominican Republic. He was 86. Mr. Davidoff’s knowledge of the city’s streets — gleaned, in part, from driving a truck to sell the insecticide DDT to tenement dwellers, waiting tables, and booking rock ‘n’ roll bands [...]
Robert A. M. Stern, a New York architect who built museums, schools, houses and libraries, died on Nov. 27 at his home I Manhattan. He was 86. Mr. Stern’s crowning creation opened in 2008 and was known only by its address, 15 Central Park West — a coupling of grandeur from the past sand the clean lines of an ultramodern high-rise. All the apartments were sold before construction was finished. In 1977, he founded [...]
Let’s enjoy the power of one candle Together Join us on the first night of Hanukkah Sunday, December 14, at 5 p.m., in Mitchell Park to light the public menorah with friends and neighbors Then, join us in the community room at the shul and feast on vodka and latkes and jelly doughnuts, too. Plus music, music, music It all starts at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 14, in Mitchell Park [...]
Be sure to join us for Shabbat services this weekend, Dec. 5 and 6, when Rabbi Jaymee Alpert will lead services from our pulpit and introduce our members and friends to NBS, Neshama Body and Soul, a practice that combines exercise with Jewish prayer and Torah reflections. For the NBS activity and demonstration, Rabbi Alpert will move the Saturday morning Musaf service to the community room. Participants should wear comfortable clothing for NBS, which [...]
Families and dear friends of those killed by violence, or in the throes of wartime, or in acts of terrorism feel the pain of those tragic deaths every day. We may sympathetically mouth terms like “closure,” but for most who mourn in those circumstances, there is no closure. Growing up, I can still remember the story of the couple who lived not far from our house — on a quiet, residential street in a small [...]
Rabbi Debra Cantor will lead the services this Shabbat. Please join us this Friday at 7:30 p.m., and again on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. to welcome Rabbi Debra Cantor to our pulpit for Shabbat services. We are planning a kiddish lunch on Saturday. All welcome. Rabbi Debra Cantor, a member of the first JTS Rabbinical School class to include women, is the spiritual leader of a shul in Bloomfield, CT. She has an extensive [...]
Saul Zabar who, across more than seven decades as a principal owner of the Upper West Side food emporium bearing his family name, kept New Yorkers amply fortified with smoked fish, earthy bread, tangy cheese, and pungent coffee, died on Oct. 7 in Manhattan. He was 97. “I really came into Zabar’s as a temporary assignment,” he told The New York Times in 2008. He never left. Instead, he became one of New York’s leading [...]
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