Yaacov Agam, an Israeli artists whose brightly colored geometric sculptures and paintings delighted the eye with optical illusions and moving parts, and whose many public artworks included the world’s largest menorah and a rainbow-hued fountain that breathed fire and played music, died on June 18 at his home in Rishon LeZion, Israel. He was 98. Mr. Agam called his works Agamographs, and he created an eyepiece with prisms for viewing them, calling it the Agamoscope. [...]
Rudolph Marcus, a Canadian-born American chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a theory that helped explain the electrochemical processes behind photosynthesis, respiration, oxidation and even how fireflies produce light, died on July 17 at his home in Pasadena, CA. He was 102. Sarah Reisman, chair of the chemistry and chemical engineering division of the California Institute of Technology, where Dr. Marcus had taught since 1978, said that it was almost impossible [...]
Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen, both kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oa on Oct. 7 and held for months in Gaza, were married on July 5 in an emotional ceremony attended by President Herzog and fellow former hostages. Cohen was held by Hamas terrorists for 55 days before her release in November 2023, during the first hostage release deal, while Troufanov was in captivity for 498 days. He was released as part of phase one of a mediated ceasefire/hostage [...]
According to an article in the July 13 New York Times, Hungarian Holocaust survivors are trying to sue entities in the country for losses suffered during the Holocaust, citing the following account that had occurred at the time: Iren Gitta Kellner was a teenager when her parents, eight siblings and hundreds of other Jews in their Hungarian town were ordered to the train station with suitcases and crammed into cattle cars by national railway workers [...]
Thank you to everyone who has donated school supplies for the children of CAST clients. Thanks to your generosity, one big red barrel has already been filled! Our collection continues, and we hope you will keep donating. The barrel is located at the top of the ramp outside the synagogue’s kitchen door. Together, we can help even more local children begin the school year prepared and ready to succeed!
Money collected from shul members, who contributed to the Yellow Candle Project, was contributed to Greenport High School to fund the bus that took the 10th-grade class to the Holocaust Museum in Glen Cove. The museum trip served as the culmination of the history class unit on the Holocaust. The shul delivered a yellow candle to each member’s house in preparation for the online presentation in which all participating families lit a candle in memory [...]
The book circle will meet on Thursday, August 27, at 3:30 p.m., in Andrew Levin Park to discuss The Thread Collectors by Shauna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman, a novel about female strength, hope and friendship. This book was reviewed by The New York Times as a story “that will stay with you long after the last page is turned.” One woman embroiders in New Orleans. A Jewish woman quilts in New York City. [...]
Save the Date: A Special Oneg Shabbat Performance Friday, August 21 2026 Following Friday evening services, the Not the Shema Players will be joined by Debra Riva and Joel Erhlich for a reading of Scene One from the full-length play: "I’m in Need of Weed" Please join us for this special theatrical presentation as part of our Oneg Shabbat. We look forward to sharing an entertaining evening of community and theater together. [...]
What happens when months, even years of working and waiting for change happens all at once? From where I sit as the newly elected president of this shul, that is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves. Most of us resist change, but when it is necessary and we face it head on, it can be challenging, exciting, and a little scary — but exhilarating at the same time. As of July 1 [...]
As we bask in the warm beauty of summer on the North Fork, we find ourselves in the middle of one of Judaism’s great annual events — an unfolding drama of alienation and reconciliation. It begins with the disastrous “Three Weeks,” culminating in Tisha B’Av — the anniversary of the destruction of the Temples and the horrifying alienation of exile. This is followed by the “Seven Weeks” of consolation, culminating in Rosh Hashanah, the Ten [...]
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