An ill wind
Whirlwind week for JCC
Tell-a-Friend
PrintAvi Lewinson, back on Tuesday from surveying the storm’s detritus at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, strove for some rueful humor. One good thing about Saturday’s storm, the JCC’s executive director told The Jewish Standard, was that “it forces you to purge right before Pesach.”
But he quickly turned serious, noting that eight people had been killed during the punishing wind and rainstorm, two of them from Teaneck. (See related story.) He did not know the area men personally, he added, “but we’re all brothers. One Jew for another.”
The JCC was up and running on Thursday, but the epic storm required an epic cleanup.
“The winds were so great,” Lewinson said, “and there’s a lot of water damage. My office is under plastic.”
On Sunday morning, the police called an emergency cell phone number — the regular phones were down, like so many in the storm-struck region — “to say that a tree from the property was blocking Clinton Avenue — this was separate from some trees blocking our own driveway.”
The power came back on about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon and the entire maintenance staff — about 10 workers — came in.
On Thursday, a jubilant Lewinson reported that the JCC was back in business — all but the pools. The pump of the training pool had burned out, and while the large pool had been heated and “shocked” to get chlorine levels back up, it was awaiting testing by the state — “and then we can let people swim.”
“People are showing up,” he said. “When you don’t have electricity in you own home, you’re looking to shower and change and relax,” and the JCC can be a resource.
They showed up even when the JCC was closed. “They had cabin fever and wanted to be able to do something,” he said.
Barricades had been set up in front and security police waved people away. “There was constant traffic from people wanting to use our center. It really hit home how much we are part of the community just to watch the number of people being waved off.”
The two area Ys fared much better.
“We didn’t really have many problems,” said Harold Benus, executive director of the YJCC of Bergen County in Washington Township. “We were closed for a few hours due to a lack of water pressure Monday — we had a delayed opening till 10 o’clock. Other than that, we were perfectly fine.”
Steve Allen, executive director of the YM-YWHA of North Jersey in Wayne, said that despite the fact that much of the township experienced flooding, “The Y was not affected in any way. We were open at regular hours, had a children’s show — ‘Aladdin’ on Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon it was sold out…. We were blessed.”
More on: An ill wind
‘We were lucky’
It was miraculous, said Ruth Gafni, head of Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County in New Milford. The town was “hit hard” over the weekend, she said, trees fell near the school, and the electricity went out. But the school was unscathed.
Schechter had scheduled parent-teacher conferences fot Sunday, and they were postponed to Monday.
On Tuesday, students came to school and enjoyed hot lunches, and the staff made sure everyone had a safe place to stay. “And the kids helped each other,” she said.
“It was miraculous,” she repeated.
A crisis in our own backyard
Jewish groups across North Jersey rallied this week to provide what aid they could to the thousands left without power after this weekend’s nor’easter.
“Unfortunately, over the past several months we’ve had crises in Haiti and Chile and now we have a crisis right here in our own backyard,” said Howard Charish, executive vice president of UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey.
The federation last year created its economic crisis fund to help those hurt by the economy. Through Jewish Family Service of North Jersey in Wayne and Jewish Family Service of Bergen and North Hudson in Teaneck, UJA-NNJ has opened the fund to aid those in need after the storm. But even as people regained power and began to assess damages this week, Charish said that the full extent and how much aid is needed won’t be known for a few more weeks.
A matter of faith?
Area rabbis ponder last week’s tragedy
Rabbi David Fine, religious leader of Temple Israel & Jewish Community Center in Ridgewood, recalls a book he was required to read in high school.
“The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” by Thornton Wilder, tells the story of several people who die in the collapse of a suspension bridge in Peru. A friar who witnessed the event tries to make sense of it, searching for some kind of cosmic reason for the tragedy.
“People always try to find explanations,” said Fine, who spoke to The Jewish Standard by cell phone Tuesday, since the synagogue’s telephone lines were still down because of the storm. But, he added, even after reading the book, he walked away unconvinced of a cosmic cause, concluding that the bridge collapse was simply an accident.
Community mourns deaths and struggles to recover
Teaneck was in mourning this week for Ovadia Mussaffi and Lawrence Krause, killed by a falling tree during Saturday night’s nor’easter as they walked home from shul after Shabbat.
As mourners gathered in the men’s homes for shiva this week, friends and family described both as friendly, sweet, and generous. Mussaffi, 54, is survived by his wife, Susan, and their four children. Krause, 49, is survived by his wife, Zahava, and six children, including a six-week-old daughter.
