The tremendous tree whose uncertain fate stirred the passions of Teaneck’s green activists last year has a new lease on life, as does the synagogue that now hosts it.
Rooted at 811 Palisade Ave., the former site of the Union for Traditional Judaism and the Institute of Traditional Judaism, the tree was at the center of a town-wide debate on whether it could safely stand over Teaneck’s main drag, Cedar Lane. Netivot Shalom, the modern Orthodox synagogue that won last fall’s bankruptcy auction of the property, decided to keep it rooted to the property.
The Orthodox Union is the latest kashrut-certifying organization to put its stamp on Ima Restaurant, a move meant to end an almost year-long feud between the Teaneck restaurant and the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County.
Ima is also the first restaurant in Bergen County to receive OU certification. The organization typically does not supervise restaurants in communities with local rabbinical boards, said Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the OU’s kashrut department and religious leader of Cong. Shomrei Emunah in Englewood. Supervision, he said, is best left to local rabbinical councils because they know their communities. But because of Ima’s strained relationship with the RCBC, Genack said, the OU thought its involvement “would help rather than hinder.”
Why is Maoz different from other restaurants in Hoboken?
The vegetarian falafel restaurant, which opened last week, is the first kosher restaurant in the city, and while the owners didn’t set out to open a kosher restaurant, the addition of the international franchise is a leap forward for the city’s growing Jewish community.
Owned by Ray Merelas and his father-in-law Stan Picheny, Maoz is certified kosher by Rabbi Israel Mayer Steinberg, who supervises a number of restaurants around New York City. Merelas said he was introduced to the franchise by his cousin, who owns a Maoz in Boca Raton, Fla., and fell in love not only with the food but with the concept of the toppings bar.
The Orthodox Union is more than just that little OU symbol on your can of baked beans, and that message was the focus on the OU’s biennial convention over the weekend in Woodcliff Lake.
More than 700 people from across the country came out to the Hilton in Woodcliff Lake, where more than 25 sessions during Sunday’s one-day conference on Jewish life focused on Torah, synagogue life, and communal life. The OU also installed its new president, Rabbi Simcha Katz of Teaneck, and passed a series of resolutions to guide the organization through the next two years.
Day-school tuition: At least $13,000 a year per child.
Kosher chicken: $2 to $3 more per pound than non-kosher chicken.
Kippot, tzitzit, tallitot, sheitels, and regular dry cleaning for these and other Shabbat and holiday clothes: You don’t want to think about it.
The cost of Jewish living is one of the most talked-about topics in the community, said Nachum Segal, host of the radio show JM in the AM, who moderated a panel on the subject on Saturday night to kick off the Orthodox Union’s national convention. Before a crowd of about 400 at Teaneck’s Cong. Keter Torah, Segal questioned a panel of political and communal leaders about why costs have gotten out of control and what can be done.
When Rabbi Simcha Katz arrived at the Orthodox Union’s New York offices on Monday, the first thing he did was turn on the lights. Newly installed as the organization’s 13th president, Teaneck resident Katz has plans to shine a light on what he sees as the two biggest threats to the Jewish community: Tuition costs and assimilation.
The father of Teaneck councilman and businessman Elie Katz, Simcha Katz was inaugurated as president on Sunday during the OU’s national convention in Woodcliff Lake.
In September, Stephen Savitsky, then the OU’s president, asked Katz about assuming the organization’s leadership. Katz, a retired businessman who had spent the past five years as chair of the OU’s kashrut division and many more years working in the division with its CEO, Rabbi Menachem Genack of Englewood, was reluctant about making the time commitment.
Two Teaneck teens dribbled their way to the gold as part of a USA youth basketball team at the 2010 Maccabi Australia International Games last month in Sydney, Australia.
Michael Grunstein, 17, and Yisrael Feld, 18, were recruited for a basketball team (there were four) representing the United States. The team, coached by Elliot Steinmetz of Woodmere, N.Y., beat Australia 97-80 in the final match to win the gold medal. Two other U.S. basketball teams won silver and bronze medals during the Dec. 22 through Jan. 3 games.
North Jersey political insiders joined people across the nation this week in lamenting Saturday’s deadly shooting in Arizona that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life. Some have added their voices to a widespread plea for a calming of political rhetoric that many have blamed for inflaming the alleged shooter.
“I believe that this tragedy may well cause people in Washington and in the media to take as great care with their choice of language as possible,” Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9) told The Jewish Standard Monday, “without compromising anyone’s right to vigorously dissent or strongly argue against any policy.”
The Teaneck Jewish organization that last year won approval from the township’s board of adjustment to partially turn a private home into a house of worship filed suit against the board last month, challenging the “offensive conditions” placed on the synagogue.
According to the lawsuit, filed in mid-December in New Jersey Superior Court, the modern Orthodox congregation Etz Chaim “is not able to proceed as a fully-operational Orthodox Jewish house of worship” and requests that the court overturn the BoA’s conditions on the variances, which the suit argues are ambiguous and restrictive.
Is it too expensive to be an Orthodox Jew today? What are the keys to a happy marriage? And what about the day-school tuition crisis?
The Orthodox Union will address these and other issues when it convenes its biannual convention next weekend in Bergen County to discuss the future role of Orthodoxy, and the Orthodox Union, in the Jewish community.
“The goal of the convention is to deal with some of the major issues facing our community,” said convention chair Emanuel Adler, a Teaneck resident, “while at the same time utilizing the resources of the Orthodox Union and demonstrating to our constituency that the union deals with various issues and has the resources to do so.”
