New York Jewish Life -- November 1st Edition

A Hebrew Public Charter School Takes a Not-So-Jewish Trip to Israel

We Followed the CD 44 #HamodiaDebate on Twitter

Shabbos Shorts: At Central Synagogue, They’re Known for Their Warmth

VOL. 1, NO. 30 | NOVEMBER 1-7, 2017 | NEWS THAT MATTERS TO JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA | NYJLIFE.COM | FREE

THE DAUGHTER OF IMMIGRANTS: Nicole Malliotakis’ father is from Greece and her mother is a Cuban exile of the Castro dictatorship. Her parents came to New York in search of the American Dream. Their dedication and entrepreneurial spirit instilled a sense of ambition in Nicole that has inspired her life in public service.

MEET NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS. Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis is running to become Mayor of New York City to stop Bill de Blasio from his continued practice of protecting criminals at the expense of the New York City taxpayer.

NicoleMalliotakis.com 2 | NYJLIFE.COM | NOV. 1 – 7, 2017

Paid for by Nicole for New York City

Publisher’s Note News that matters to Jewish communities in the New York City metropolitan area

We’re Failing Guy Hever, and Ourselves The world is a collection of people.

Whatever comes after that, however we segment and why, qualifies that first truth. Whether it be countries, cities, faith communities, ethnicities or families, all are groups of individuals born into this world with rights and needs absolutely and completely equal to everyone else’s.

We build systems to serve the many with the most, in ways consistent with human nature and the impulse to protect our own. Those systems evolve in an arc that bends towards freedom, along a tortured but necessary path that often leaves people behind. It’s naive to think we can live in some graceful state of prehistory where things don’t matter. It’s always more complicated than that.

We know better, and we work towards better, and we live with the crushing regret of not being better now.

But sometimes we shine. We come together in times of natural disaster and calamity to save individuals, in ways all out of proportion to how we usually think of single people.

Soldiers know this; it’s how they live.

While politicians and generals think in the aggregate, soldiers know the only thing that matters is the person next to them. Nobody gets left behind. We don’t leave our dead on the battlefield.

We account for every single person.

“Missing in action” is, in many ways, worse than being killed. We need to know what happened.

So imagine how tortured the family of Guy Hever must feel. Hever has been missing for 20 years, vanishing from his base in the Golan Heights in 1997, with no trace of him since except for vague reports that perhaps he’s being held in Syria. How abandoned his parents and twin siblings must feel, because the world’s Jewish communities have not made finding this IDF soldier a priority.

I know the responses. “We tried.”

“We’re still looking.” “We’re engaged in delicate negotiations and intelligence operations we cannot tell you about.”

“Be patient.” “We haven’t forgotten.”

That all may be true; it all may be lies.

It may be a mix of lies and the truth, snaked around each other in ways that make it impossible to tell them apart.

It doesn’t matter anymore. Twenty years is a long time, so let’s pretend all the explanations are true, and move forward from there.

We’ve failed the Hever family. We’ve broken the compact that makes us better; that makes all the awful stuff we have to do more tolerable. We’ve been called on to make one person our shared priority but we haven’t done it.

I met with Guy’s mother, Rena Hever, a few weeks ago. She’s lovely. I saw pictures of her three grandchildren, the youngest still an infant. I met her brother, Guy’s uncle, who lives in New Jersey. He struck me as the kind of guy you’d have a beer with and laugh the whole time. He misses his nephew.

I asked Rena how she’s gotten on with

things, how she’s made a life for herself and her family over the past 20 years.

She told me she compartmentalizes, but the sadness is always there. Her husband is a psychiatrist whose practice includes working with soldiers. I’m not sure how he does it, seeing young people who look like his son on the day he disappeared. What might Guy look like now?

His twin siblings—a brother and a sister—are a good-looking, striking pair. Their smiles light up the photo album I looked through. Their brother has been missing as long as the age he was when they knew him. What does that feel like?

There are times the world seems large and unknowable, but there are times when the path forward appears well lit and clear. We know the right thing to do here. We’ve always known, but it’s been too hard.

Let’s leave all that behind and bring the Hever family the solace they deserve. If the weight of political decisions needed to rest on the hearts of one family, surely 20 years is long enough. When we put our minds to it, we can do amazing things.

Let’s make Guy Hever our priority.

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CANDLE LIGHTING

Michael Tobman, Publisher

Friday, Nov. 3 Candles: 5:31 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 6:30 p.m.

Friday, Nov. 10 Candles: 4:24 p.m.

Shabbat Ends: 5:24 p.m.

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SCHUMER IN THE NEWS

Schumer Reveals MTA May Not Meet Critical Safety Deadline SCHUMER: MTA MUST WORK TO MEET DEADLINE FOR POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL SAFETY MEASURE With the clock ticking and on the heels of new information suggesting a delay in the implementation of life-saving railroading technology, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer on Sunday called on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)— including the LIRR and MetroNorth—to move heaven and earth to complete the installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) by the federally mandated deadline of 2018.

Despite nearly a decade of lead time, including a three-year extension, the MTA recently suggested it may not meet its 2018 timeline for full implementation of PTC technology.

According to the most recent figures provided by the MTA, the agency is just 54 percent of the way through full PTC installation. Schumer said that this pace of progress just will not do and urged immediate action.

“The clock is ticking on PTC and the deadline for full installation is fast approaching, which is why it is shocking to know that the MTA could be in a position for yet another delay on this life-saving, crash-preventing technology,” said Schumer. “The technology is available and the money has been secured via a billion-dollar federal loan I supported, so there’s simply no reason for the MTA to once again miss the upcoming Positive Train Control implementation deadline mandated by Congress. If a conductor falls asleep at the wheel or if a train is on a section of the tracks where another train is approaching, PTC would automatically slow down the train in

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order to prevent a collision. Once fully implemented, PTC will help prevent fatal crashes on passenger and freight trains, so it’s of the utmost importance that MTA and LIRR and Metro-North get back on track and quickly install this life-saving technology by the end of next year.”

PTC is a communications and signaling system that can be used on railroads to prevent collisions caused by excessive speed and human error.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has found that dozens of passenger and freight rail accidents over

the years could have been prevented through the use of PTC, including the 2015 derailment of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia in which eight lives were lost, a 2013 Spuyten Duyvil crash in the Bronx in which four lives were lost, and a 2008 crash in southern California that killed 25 commuters.

Nearly 10 years ago, Congress required all railroad main lines with regularly scheduled commuter rail passenger service as well as Class I railroad main lines handling poisonous/ inhalation/hazard materials to fully implement PTC by the end of 2015.

However, many railroad entities, including the MTA, failed to meet that deadline. As a result, under the PTC Enforcement and Implementation Act, Congress extended the deadline to Dec. 31, 2018.

Moreover, in 2015, Schumer helped to secure a low-cost federal Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for $976.1 million to be used by the MTA and its railroads for PTC implementation.

The FRA gives RRIF priority to projects that provide public benefits, including benefits to public safety such as PTC. The nearly $1 billion in RRIF financing

enables the LIRR and Metro-North to swiftly install and implement PTC by the 2018 deadline.

Despite nearly a decade of preparation time, including a threeyear extension and the nearly $1 billion federal loan, recent reports by the MTA have suggested the MTA is uncertain LIRR and Metro-North will meet that deadline. Schumer called that most concerning in light of numerous conversations in which the MTA suggested it would meet the 2018 deadline. For instance, in February 2017, an LIRR official at the MTA Board’s Capital Program Oversight Committee meeting said, “The project is on target to achieve beneficial use in December 2018 to meet the mandated deadline.”

According to the MTA’s most recent progress report, PTC is just over 50 percent complete. To view this update, please refer to page 89 of the notes from the MTA Capital Programs Oversight Committee’s Monday, Oct. 23, meeting, in which the MTA presented PTC progress (for the LIRR and Metro-North combined) as 54 percent complete: http://web.mta. info/mta/news/books/pdf/171023_1415_ CPOC.pdf.

Spuyten Duyvil Metro-North Railroad station PHOTO BY DANIEL CASE

Martins has led the fight for more resources for Jewish education and successfully secured hundreds of millions more in funding for our yeshivas.

Martins fought for tuition tax credits to relieve the pressure on tuition paying parents. As the product of Catholic schools, and the parent of Catholic school students, he understands the financial struggles of parents in our community.

Martins has led the charge in New York State against those who boycott Israel. He sponsored anti-BDS legislation that Governor Cuomo made into an executive order.

Anti-Semitic graffiti at Beth Shalom Cemetery in Warwick, NY PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CHRONICLE

Teen Indicted for Anti-Semitic Vandalism of N.Y. Jewish Cemetery (JTA) — A teenager was indicted for the anti-Semitic vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in upstate New York more than a year ago.

On Monday, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office charged Eric Carbonaro, 18, of Warwick, with fifthdegree conspiracy as a hate crime and two counts of tampering with physical evidence, both felonies.

Carbonaro is accused of spraypainting the wall of the Beth Shalom Cemetery in Warwick with anti-Semitic graffiti including swastikas, “Heil Hitler” and Nazi SS symbols on Oct. 9, 2016. Warwick is located about 90 minutes north of Manhattan.

A conspiracy count in the indictment charges that Carbonaro conspired with others to commit third-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, and

also includes the evidence-tampering charge.

The indictment says that Carbonaro deleted photos and other information about the vandalism from the phones of two other individuals, according to the Times Herald-Record, including a meme that read, “secretly spray paints Jewish cemetery and gets away with it.”

Two alleged co-conspirators were not named in the indictment.

“There is no room for this type of hateful desecration of religious property here in Orange County,” District Attorney David Hoovler said in a statement. “These anti-Semitic symbols and messages do not reflect the values of the overwhelming majority of Orange County and Warwick residents.”

Martins has led the fight in Albany to stop taxpayer dollars from going to anti-Israel organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine.

Martins has vociferously objected to Nassau County allowing anti-semitic singer Roger Waters to perform on government-owned property at Nassau Coliseum.

As Mayor of the Village of Mineola, Martins helped the community erect an Eruv.

R

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BRIEFING

FIFA, in Final Ruling on Palestinian Request, Says It Won’t Sanction Israel (JTA) — The FIFA soccer federation said it would not impose sanctions on Israel and its teams from the West Bank, rejecting repeated requests to do so by the Palestinian Authority.

Israel’s six West Bank teams, which play in lower-level leagues, are located in the settlements of Maale Adumim, Ariel, Kiryat Arba, Givat Zeev, Oranit and the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians have asked for their exclusion from international matches and the Israeli soccer association, which is a FIFA member.

The P.A. also sought punitive actions against Israel for its detainment of a soccer player suspected of terrorist activity and refusal to allow some Palestinian players to travel for matches.

“The FIFA Council has decided to refrain from imposing any sanctions or other measures on either the Israel Football Association or the Palestinian Football Association, as well as from requesting any other FIFA body to do so,” the organization wrote in a statement Oct. 27, which referenced Israel’s threat to pursue countermeasures against the Palestinians.

“The matter is declared closed and will not be the subject of any further discussion until the legal and/or de facto framework has changed,” the statement also read.

The decision was based on a report submitted by the FIFA Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine chaired by

Tokyo Sexwale and “after a thorough legal consultation process,” the Switzerland-based world soccer body said.

The current situation is, “for reasons that have nothing to do with football, characterized by an exceptional complexity and sensitivity” and “can neither be ignored nor changed unilaterally by non-governmental organizations such as FIFA.” In line with the general principle established in FIFA Statutes, it “must remain neutral with regard to political matters,” the statement also read.

Notwithstanding, “the FIFA administration will continue to facilitate the movement of players, officials and football equipment in, out of, and within Palestine—the aspect on which the FIFA Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine has covered the most ground and achieved a positive response,” the statement also read.

The Palestinians have also called for Israel to be removed from FIFA altogether. They say having teams in the West Bank violates FIFA’s rules, which state, “Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter’s approval.”

When Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, FIFA’s European affiliate, UEFA, blocked Russia from incorporating teams from Crimea in its national league on the basis of the same rule.

Members of Israel’s national football team posing before a match against Croatia and Israel at Stadium Gradski Vrt in Osijek, Croatia, March 23, 2016 PHOTO BY SRDJAN STEVANOVIC/GETTY IMAGES

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SS Lazio players warming up with shirts depicting Anne Frank before a match against Bologna FC at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara in Bologna, Italy, Oct. 25, 2017 PHOTO BY MARCO ROSI/GETTY IMAGES

Italian Soccer Club President Calls Synagogue Visit a “Charade” (JTA) — Prior to two matches in Italy, soccer fans protested during the reading of a passage from The Diary of Anne Frank.

Meanwhile, the president of the Lazio soccer team reportedly was heard on tape calling his visit to a Rome synagogue “a charade” and, referring to Jews, saying, “These people don’t count a damn.”

The decision to hold a moment of silence and read from the diary at professional, amateur and youth soccer matches was announced Tuesday, days after Lazio fans plastered a shared stadium with stickers showing the teenage Holocaust diarist wearing the uniform of a rival city club, Roma.

On Wednesday, Lazio players warmed up wearing jerseys with an image of Anne Frank and the words “No All Antisemitism.” But fans of the Turin squad Juventus turned their backs and sang the country’s national anthem during the reading as a protest.

At a game between Roma and the Calabria-based Crotone, fans shouted team chants during the readings at the same stadium where the stickers were

displayed, the BBC reported.

Meanwhile, Lazio President Claudio Lotito is denying that it was his voice on a recording mocking the synagogue visit in the wake of the poster incident.

On Oct. 24, he laid a wreath of blue-andwhite flowers there and announced he would take 200 fans every year to visit Auschwitz.

The following day, the Italian daily newspaper Il Messaggero released the recording made by passengers as Lotito was boarding a flight from Milan to visit the synagogue, in which he said, “These people don’t count a damn. They are worth nothing. Do you realize how pathetic the whole thing is? Let’s go do this charade.”

The diary passage that is being recited at games reads, “I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”

BRIEFING

An Israeli Chef in New York Talks Spices

BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN

NEW YORK (JTA) — For many home cooks, spices are an afterthought. Israeliborn, French-educated chef Lior Lev Sercarz wants to change that.

Sercarz, 45, spoke with the JTA recently at La Boite, the small spiceand-biscuit shop he opened in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.

Since opening La Boite in 2011, Sercarz has amassed some 50 clients, including restaurants, bakeries and breweries, as well as cheese, popcorn and chocolate makers. He has also published two books about spice blending and created a unique line of spices for Eataly, a chain of luxury Italian indoor markets.

Now Sercarz—who grew up in a secular family on a kibbutz in the Israeli Galilee, but also lived in Belgium and Italy during his childhood—hopes to expand his work to his native country. He is working with the Jewish National Fund-USA to create a culinary institute in the Galilee, with hopes of opening the first part of the

Chef Lior Lev Sercarz PHOTO BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN

program in two to three years.

At his shop, Sercarz offers 70 spice blends he has created for the restaurants and food-related businesses with which he works, as well as some 85 blends for the general public.

Spice blends include combinations such as desert rose (halva, sesame and rose petals), pierre poivre (which contains eight different peppers) and apollonia (cocoa, orange blossom and pepper). A small container of the single spices costs

$9 to $30; blends go for $13 to $27 for a small container.

Sercarz says his Israeli school, which will be located in the city of Kiryat Shemona, will be unique in that it won’t only offer cooking instruction. Sure, there will be instruction in breadmaking, cheesemaking, beer brewing and, of course, spice mixing. But students can also learn about a variety of foodrelated fields such as food science and technology, agriculture, and food writing and advertising.

Israel’s Bishulim and Danon culinary schools, both of which offer professional cooking and pastry classes, and the Culinary Institute of Israel, which offers studyabroad programs for cooking, are among the current options available in Israel.

Sercarz’s school will focus on the direct connection between agriculture and cooking, JNF communications director Adam Brill told the JTA in an email. JNF is currently assessing the funding needs for the school, he said.

Sercarz knows a thing or two about cooking. He earned a degree from the Paul

Bocuse Institute in Lyon, France, whose founder is a heavyweight in the nouvellecuisine cooking method. Sercarz later relocated to New York, where he worked with the famed chef Daniel Boulud at his flagship restaurant, Daniel.

But after six years at Daniel, Sercarz wanted to change directions. He started experimenting at home with spices and cookie baking, earning him praise from friends. In 2011, after three years of working with spices at home while maintaining a gig at a corporate dining hall, he decided to pursue his passion full time, opening La Boite.

Sercarz, who lives on the Upper West Side, also sells cookies, which he flavors with nuts, chocolate, dried fruits and, naturally, spices. An eight-ounce box sells for $65.

He draws inspiration from Jewish and Israeli cuisine, as well as his own family background. Sercarz is three-quarters Ashkenazi, but jokes that “luckily” he has a Tunisian grandfather. His grandmother would incorporate the flavor of her husband’s country into her European cooking.

Sercarz says cooks shouldn’t be afraid to mix spices from different cuisines, as his grandmother did.

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BRIEFING

Niveen Rizkalla working with IsraAID in Santa Rosa, Calif.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISRAAID

The Israeli NGO that Is Bringing Relief to America’s Disaster Areas

BY RON KAMPEAS

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WASHINGTON (JTA) — For 17 years, the Israeli NGO IsraAID has been performing search and rescue, purifying water, providing emergency medical assistance and walking victims of trauma back to psychological health in dozens of disaster-hit countries.

But no season has been busier than this past summer and fall, its co-CEO Yotam Polizer said in an interview—and nowhere more than in the United States.

“The last few months have been unbelievable,” he said, listing a succession of disasters that occupied local staff and volunteers since August: Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and then the wildfires in northern California.

Polizer recalls that he was wrapping up a visit to IsraAID’s new American headquarters in Palo Alto on Oct. 8 and was on his way to a flight to Mexico to oversee operations after a devastating earthquake there when he got word of the wildfires. “I literally had to do a U-turn,” he said last week in an interview at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Polizer spoke with the exhilaration of an executive whose team has come through a daunting challenge.

“We’re the people who stay past the ‘aid festival,’” he said, grinning, describing the month after a disaster when media attention and donations are at their highest; both tend to disappear after that period.

He anticipated that his teams would stay in Houston for another three months and in Puerto Rico for another year. Indeed, an IsraAID team remains in Haiti eight years after a devastating earthquake hit that country.

The assistance IsraAID administered in the United States over the past two months is emblematic of the added Israeli value it brings to disaster relief across the globe: • In Houston and in nearby Beaumont, Texas, its team supervised and participated in cleaning debris and strategic house demolition, a skill derived from the cleanup Israeli authorities administer after wartime attacks on Israeli communities; • In Puerto Rico, the teams administered emergency medical care honed in postattack scenarios, as well as training in water filtration cultivated in a country where fresh water is scarce; • In Santa Rosa, California, a social worker with the team led post-trauma care—a hard-won specialty in Israel—for families who lost their homes in the fires.

There are other, less tangible skills associated with the Israeli experience that Polizer described.

For example, Israel’s diverse immigrant base offers language skills: Polizer was able to immediately deploy Spanish speakers to Puerto Rico.

He boasts of an Israeli propensity to cut through bureaucracy when needed—“the Israeli manner,” he calls it. Almost as soon as Houston was hit, the Israeli embassy in Washington was organizing truckloads of relief for the area.

IsraAID volunteers often act as coordinators, a skill cultivated in a country where teenagers are thrust into leadership positions in the army.

“The biggest challenge is how you coordinate and communicate, how you identify what are the gaps in the response,” Polizer said.

One of IsraAID’s U.S. partners is Team Rubicon, an organization of military vets that deploys to disasters.

In Houston, the Rubicon-IsraAID proportion was typical of the relationship, he said: The Americans deployed about 2,000 volunteers, while there were seven Israelis. IsraAID relies on a bank of 1,400 volunteers and 270 staff it rotates in and out of afflicted areas.

Polizer—to his own surprise—ended up tapping another non-Israeli team of volunteers in Houston: members of the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq who had sought refuge from deadly persecution at home.

The first call Polizer made after hearing Harvey hit was to Haider Elias, a Yazidi leader who had worked with IsraAID in advocating for greater assistance for Yazidis fleeing from areas controlled by the Islamic State. IsraAID had administered post-trauma counseling to Yazidi refugees.

Polizer called only because he wanted to know his Houston-based friend was OK. As it happens, the Yazidis in Houston mostly live on higher land—but Elias had heard that the Jewish community was hard hit, and saw an opportunity to return the favor. He called around and found another half-dozen Yazidis ready to deploy.

“I went with a truck. I put our logo on it, ‘Yazda,’” he said, referring to the Yazidi advocacy group he heads. The team wore the IsraAID t-shirts. “I met with Yotam in Greece,” where the Israeli organization was assisting Yazidis. “He was doing a great job.”

Elias has since visited Israel to lobby the Knesset to

BRIEFING

recognize the massacres of Yazidis as a genocide, and has toured Yad Vashem, the country’s Holocaust memorial.

IsraAID’s first crisis point is often a disaster area’s Jewish community, if it is afflicted. It then moves on to other communities. Elias and his team remained in Houston, assisting in debris-clearing and demolition, while the IsraAID team continued to Beaumont, Texas, where it remains.

Connecting with Diaspora Jewish communities has become a central part of the IsraAID ethos, Polizer said, noting a program it now runs that deploys young American Jewish volunteers to assist in disaster areas.

This year, there were 120 applicants for 14 fellowships.

“We’ve seen a lot of people change their perspective, even here in the United States. For younger Jewish people asking questions about their identity, we see this work really resonates. We get large numbers of volunteers from the Jewish community” when IsraAID enters a disaster zone, he said.

The fellowships are funded by the San Francisco-based Koret Foundation, which also is funding IsraAID’s new Palo Alto office, and seed money that allows IsraAID to deploy teams quickly while raising money elsewhere for the longer term. (IsraAID’s $9 million annual budget comes from foundations and private donors. Unusual for an Israeli group, 30 percent comes from the United Nations.)

In Santa Rosa, 30 Jewish families were

evacuated and one community member died as a result of the fires. Polizer called one of the professionals IsraAID keeps on tab, Niveen Rizkalla, a social worker who is in a postdoctoral program at the University of California-Berkeley.

“In the first week when people are overwhelmed, you just want to listen and be there for them,” said Rizkalla, a Palestinian citizen of Israel originally from Ramle. “People who saw me on the first day saw me on the second day, on the third day—the consistency of me being there helped them feel safe.”

In subsequent weeks, the strategy was to preoccupy the families, who may need to talk less and act more as a means of processing the trauma, she said. Additionally, the evacuation center—set up at the Congregation Shomrei Torah Reform synagogue in the town—served as a care center for children while parents traversed the bureaucratic slog of seeking insurance information.

Rizkalla said it was a skill that came naturally to someone steeped in the tensions of the region. In Haifa, she had directed the city’s crisis center, working with survivors of sexual violence; before that she was a facilitator at Neve Shalom, the Jewish-Arab village in Israel that promotes dialogue.

“I was facilitating groups of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis, and sometimes Germans were added into this conflict,” she said, chuckling. “I developed tolerance and understanding of what is involved in a conflict situation.”

Yotam Polizer, co-CEO of IsraAID, in Santa Rosa, Calif.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ISRAAID

NOV. 1 – 7, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 9

PUERTO RICO NEEDS OUR HELP.

Support the Hispanic Federation’s UNIDOS Fund. One hundred percent of contributions to the UNIDOS Fund goes to help the immediate and long-term recovery needs of children, families and communities in distress from the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.

WAYS TO DONATE TEXT

WEBSITE

BY CHECK

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Compose a new text message to number 41444.

Visit hispanicfederation. org/unidos

Check payable to: Hispanic Federation

Visit any Popular Community Bank

Type UNIDOS (space) YOUR AMOUNT (space) and YOUR NAME For example: Unidos 100 John Doe

Select the amount you want to donate

Memo: Hurricane Relief Fund

Account name: Hurricane Relief Effort

Enter your credit card information and your contact information

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Checking account number: 6810893500

Press “send” and click on the link to complete your donation.

Designate your gift to Hurricane Relief Effort

www.hispanicfederation.org/unidos 10 | NYJLIFE.COM | NOV. 1 – 7, 2017

Central Synagogue:

They’re Known for Their Warmth

BY AARON SHORT

Where does a synagogue fit in the contemporary world, and how can it best serve its congregants living in an increasingly computerized age in which it is difficult to unplug?

In Judaism the answer to a question is more questions, but these thoughts tend to dissipate once you walk up the stone steps of Central Synagogue at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street and through a metal detector in the foyer. This is because the inside of Central Synagogue is a sensory faith experience. You are meant to feel as well as think, and also to gape in awe as an organ playing a stirring melody in major chords fills the colossal fourstory sanctuary.

On Shabbos, ushers line the back

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

rows handing out programs of the weekend’s festivities that note the rabbis leading the service—the synagogue employs four as well as two cantors—the weekend’s Torah portion, selected hymns in English and Hebrew, and notable guests visiting from out of town.

One usher points to the organ above the foyer before the service begins and adds, “We’re known for our warmth.”

From the outside, the formidable Moorish-revival shul complete with minarets looks more in tune with the Middle Ages than Midtown East. But Central Synagogue, which dates back to the Gilded Age, has been one of the leading Reform congregations in the United States since it was built in 1872.

Israel Day Parade 1973 PHOTO COURTESY OF CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE

The shul is known in Reform circles as the more progressive, “new money” shul, as compared to the buttoned-up Temple Emanu-El on 65th Street, as one regular told me. It attracts Wall Street executives and celebrities such as Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan.

In 1998, a five-alarm fire scorched the shul about 45 minutes before Shabbos, destroying the roof and damaging the walls. The destruction forced the synagogue to shutter for three years as the congregation restored the sanctuary at a cost of $40 million.

During its closure, the congregation continued to grow. Not all members can sit inside during the high holidays— its capacity is 2,964 seats including the balcony—but the shul comfortably fits the 600 congregants who regularly attend services on Friday evenings.

On a Friday night in October, Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl was on the bimah. She made history in 2001 when she became the first Asian American in the world to be ordained as a rabbi. She joined Central as a cantor in 2006 and became its senior rabbi in 2014—a leadership change noted

by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and the White House, which invited her to lead Hanukkah services later

that year.

Three years after headlines described her as a “pioneer” and the “face of Judaism,” Buchdahl has settled in nicely. At the recent service, she serenaded congregations with the evening’s prayers along with a cantor who strummed an acoustic guitar throughout the 90-minute service.

The shul often has a 10-piece band accompanying the rabbi and cantor, but that night it was just the organist and a keyboard player sitting off the stage. Their harmonized vocals soared throughout the room as congregants sang along, some with their eyes closed, to the evening’s liturgical songs.

Music lingered throughout the service, during breaks between prayers and when another rabbi spoke of members of the congregation and American soldiers fighting overseas who had recently passed away. At the mention of the loss of relatives, one middle-aged woman sitting three rows in front of me wept softly as her daughter and mother comforted her.

The instruments were only muzzled during the Amidah (a reflective silent prayer) and during the Torah portion—read on both Friday nights and Saturday mornings in many Reform congregations. That week’s reading from Genesis covered the story of Eve’s bite of an apple from the tree of knowledge.

I wasn’t any closer to answering profound questions about the role of a synagogue in 21st-century America. But after a solid hour and a half of prayers, I, like Eve, needed a snack.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF NY ASSEMBLY

Helene of Canarsie HOW A SOUTHERN BROOKLYN ASSEMBLY MEMBER BECAME THE MOST POWERFUL WOMAN IN NEW YORK

BY AARON SHORT

The moment Helene Weinstein became one of the most powerful women in the state was not particularly climactic.

Herman Farrell Jr., the longtime Harlem Democratic assemblyman and head of the towering Ways and Means Committee, announced in August he would retire after 42 years in office. That set in motion the “churn”—a musical-chairs process where legislators vie for cascading leadership seats until all the openings are filled.

A number of Albany’s eldest members privately contacted Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to pitch themselves for the gig, which comes with a $34,000 bonus and a knowledgeable staff. Heastie considered several members before selecting the Sheepshead Bay Democrat and 37-year veteran on September 17, sending out a press release the next day.

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Weinstein had ascended to the third-highest position in the chamber virtually overnight.

Some members weren’t even aware she was under consideration. Others who wanted the job acknowledge Heastie made a good choice.

“I can’t be disappointed,” said Greenpoint Assemblyman Joe Lentol, “dean” of the Brooklyn delegation. “There are good reasons for a woman to be chosen for a powerful position, and the Speaker may want to be making a statement in that direction.”

Weinstein said in a statement that she was “humbled by the historic opportunity,” and promptly went to work.

“I know there’s a lot of work involved, but it’s a tremendous responsibility and I feel that I have much to offer and work with colleagues to guide us to a place where we can move forward,” she said. “I’m not

one who normally boasts.”

Indeed, she has a Twitter account but doesn’t tweet, leaving prominent women in public office to tout her accomplishments on her behalf.

“It was an opportunity to put a woman in the seat, which is groundbreaking for the State Assembly,” said Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal. “She’s very intelligent; she pays attention to details; she’s diligent; and we have a lot of confidence in her. I think she was thrilled!”

Former Councilman Lew Fidler, longtime friend and political ally, thinks Weinstein’s “levelheaded demeanor” swayed the Speaker.

“She’s been a very trusting, professional and respectful colleague, and it is my sense she deals with everybody in Albany the same way,” Fidler said. “No one is worried Helene Weinstein is looking for their cookies.”

Weinstein’s start in politics was considerably more dramatic, involving the type of bare-knuckle political brawling many of her current younger colleagues wouldn’t necessarily attribute to the new Ways and Means chair.

She grew up one of two daughters of parents who were active in Canarsie’s civic associations, as well as founders of Temple Shaare Emeth, a conservative synagogue. Back then, Canarsie and Flatlands were largely Italian, Irish and Jewish neighborhoods, and there were still active farms in the region.

“Many blocks I walked to school and there were farms and bits of land. Someone had a goat in their yard,” she said.

Weinstein went to college and law school out of state, but never strayed from Southern Brooklyn. By 1978, just months after passing the bar exam, she was ready to run for office.

“I grew up understanding the importance of regular citizens’ speaking out,” she said. “When opportunity came for new leadership in our community, it was a simple plan to go from practicing law to running for office.”

The plan may have been simple, but it was no easy task. Her challenger was the most powerful legislator in Albany, Speaker Stanley Steingut, who noticed she’d made a mistake on some paperwork involving her residency and had her removed from the ballot seven days before the primary.

But the Board of Elections said her petitions were still valid, triggering her father, Murray, an attorney and community activist, to step up and run in her place. In a shocking upset, Murray won the Democratic primary and then went on to edge out Steingut in the November general election by about 1,200 votes.

“A lot of people were angry that she was knocked off the ballot,” said Brooklyn Councilman Alan Maisel, who helped run her early campaign.

Over the years, Steingut had lost touch with his district, prompting voters to throw the man out.

“The Speaker forgot where he was,” said Fidler. “No one saw him; no one knew him. When we poked him in the ribs his reaction was too little too late.

Murray Weinstein served a term before stepping down, allowing his daughter to run in his place.

Helene Weinstein wouldn’t make the same mistake

as Steingut: She worked hard at constituent relations and showed up at meetings large and small throughout the district.

“I think she knew that when she got elected, there was more of a focus on her than other seats.

She worked very hard,” said Brooklyn Assemblyman Peter Abbate. “She knew she was going to be watched so she was going to do a great job.”

Five women had been elected to the Assembly in 1980, but Weinstein noticed she was the only one with a law degree. She saw opportunities to work on legislation affecting women, children and the elderly.

By 1993, she joined the Ways and Means Committee. She received the Judiciary Committee seat in 1994, which she has led through the fall, passing hundreds of bills throughout her career.

Weinstein has consistently been a champion on domestic violence, criminal justice, public safety and foreclosure reform.

Her colleagues call her an “inspiration” and a “role model.”

“She continues to be a leader on every issue important to women in this state,” said Westchester Assemblywoman Amy Paulin. “Her leadership comes in what she has been able to accomplish.”

Paulin first came to the assembly 18 years ago, and she noted that Weinstein helped her pass her first domestic-violence bill then.

“I had a background in domestic violence, and instead of being in competition with me, she embraced the fact that there was somebody else who cared about the issues she did,” Paulin added.

“She was supportive, and I’ll always remember and appreciate that. She taught me to do bills that matter to me and matter to her.”

These days, Weinstein has been studying the intricacies of the state budget to prepare for the upcoming session in January, when the governor releases his proposed budget bill. A lot can change by then—especially as Congress puts together its budget, which could include funding cuts to healthcare and social services to states, while also trying to rewrite the tax code by the end of the year.

“It’s going to be a tight year with finances, and we have to try and accomplish as much as we can within limits,” Weinstein said. “We can’t just print money to take care of everybody’s wishes. Some of the responsibility of being chair of Ways and Means is also being able to say ‘no’ to people.”

Weinstein credits her longevity and success at passing legislation to “coalition building” and “perseverance.”

“Legislation is sometimes like fine wine, which was described by a Speaker of many years back,” she said. “Sometimes you introduce a bill and it’s like a Beaujolais—by the end of session it becomes law. Other times it must age many years before it is ready to pass.”

But a savviness about the labyrinthine ways of Albany, honed over many years, helps too.

“She is not a publicity seeker or a grandstander; she is sincerely interested in policy issues, and she has respect across the aisle and across the state,” said Fidler.

Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein and Bishop of Brooklyn Nicholas DiMarzio

Assemblywoman Weinstein speaks with constituents.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NY ASSEMBLY

NOV. 1 – 7, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 13

HOUSING

A New York City public-housing complex PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Affordable Housing Is Crucial to the American Dream

BY ASSEMBLYMAN STEVEN CYMBROWITZ

New York City is facing a shortage of affordable and development of new housing as well as the housing that exposes tenants to displacement from preservation of existing housing stock. their communities and makes them more likely to become rent-burdened (meaning that more than 30 percent of the household’s income goes toward rent, which is contrary to housing-affordability standards).

Seniors are more likely to be rentburdened than other populations; close to 60 percent of senior renters are rent-burdened, according to a 2017 report by the New York City comptroller.

In addition to new construction, the preservation of our existing housing stock, be it public housing or not, is also crucial to address the housing crisis and homelessness epidemic. Policymakers at both the state and city levels have recognized the need for affordable housing, and Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz speaks with a constituent. each has supported the financing PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NYS ASSEMBLY

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As part of this year’s enacted state budget, a statewide five-year, $2.5 billion spending plan for the creation and preservation of up to 6,000 supportive housing units and 100,000 affordable units was included. Some key investments serving seniors directly and indirectly include $125 million for lowincome senior housing; $200 million for the New York City Housing Authority, which has more than 60,000 senior head-of-household families; and $100 million for the development of affordable housing in New York City, which will only be for households earning up to 60 percent area median income, or $51,450 for a family of three.

Throughout my time in the Assembly, I have worked to protect the quality of life, health, safety and independence of older adults. According to that same 2017 comptroller report, there are 1.1 million adults aged 65-plus living in New York City today, and that number is expected to increase to 1.4 million by the year 2040.

Rising rents, combined with the recent economic recession, have put a strain on seniors, and some may be facing difficult times in retirement. As a result, they struggle to remain in their homes or find housing options that suit their unique needs. The inclusion of the $125 million for low-income senior housing was very important to me, as were recent changes to the SCRIE/DRIE programs, both of which will go a long way toward providing much-needed affordable housing for seniors. In addition, I will continue to fight for the protection of our rent-regulated apartments, which are a proven method of ensuring affordability for renters of all ages.

Services that help seniors stay in their homes and age in place are also important. NORCs, or naturally occurring retirement communities, were established by the Legislature in 1994, and Neighborhood NORCs were created in 2005. These programs assist seniors who live in buildings and neighborhoods that were not originally built just for seniors, but are now home to a significant number of them. These individuals have aged in place, and NORCs, both classic and neighborhood, provide key supports to keep them in their communities.

In the most recent state budget, the Assembly fought for and managed to include in the enacted budget an additional $2 million in funding for these programs. This additional funding represents a renewed focus on wraparound services needed for seniors to live successfully in the community.

Affordable housing is very much tied to workforce availability and the vibrancy of our communities. It is a first step, and continued necessity, in the path to the American Dream. We cannot let millions of New Yorkers struggle to keep their heads above water.

We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz is chair of the NYS Assembly Housing Committee.

HOUSING

A Simple Tweak to the Federal Tax Code Would Support More Affordable Housing

BY MARK WILLIS

With the rise from 2013 to 2015 in U.S. renter households facing severe housing burdens, federal support for programs to preserve and create affordable housing remains critical. As the tax reform framework recently released by President Trump and the majority leadership explicitly noted, federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs) provide “incentives [that] have proven to be effective in promoting policy goals important in the American economy.” However, the framework was silent on another tax program benefiting the production of affordable housing that should be preserved and improved.

This program is tax-exempt private activity bonds (“tax-exempt bonds”), which also generate “as of right” 4 percent housing tax credits (“housing credits”) when the bonds are used for affordable multifamily housing. The combination of tax-exempt bonds and housing credits has played an important role in state and local production of affordable housing. In fact, some 40 percent of all the housingcredit developments nationally are generated through tax-exempt bond financing, rising to as much as 85 percent of the total in places such as New York City. And the importance of the use of these bonds with their as-of-right housing credits is increasing nationwide as a way to preserve the existing housing stock, including for the preservation of public housing taking advantage of the Rental Assistance Demonstration program.

Not only are tax-exempt bonds still needed to address the nation’s housing needs, but a tweak to the tax-exempt bond program would allow for even more effective use of this important tool. The combination of the tax-exempt financing and housing tax credits, which can be sold to corporate investors, provides a powerful incentive for the production and preservation of rental housing for low-income households.

Today, Affordable Housing Competes with Other Uses for the Volume Cap

The availability of tax-exempt bonds is subject to an annual limit—known as “volume cap”—determined according to each state’s population size. States and localities can use the cap to support a number of uses including economic development, homeownership and rental housing. However, only rental housing

can generate as-of-right 4 percent housing credits, and then only if at least 40 percent of the units are affordable to households earning no more than 60 percent of the local area’s median income, or 20 percent are affordable to those earning no more than 50 percent of the area’s median income.

Given the multiple uses competing for volume cap and the need for more affordable housing, states and localities should be allowed to make as effective use as possible of as-of-right housing credits without having to shortchange other valuable, eligible uses. A simple tweak to the tax-exempt bond program is all that is needed.

Tweak “Recycling” to Allow MoreEffective Use of Tax-Exempt Bonds for Affordable Housing

The key for being able to use tax-exempt bonds more effectively for affordable housing already exists as a result of “recycling” (technically a form of refunding), which was first allowed in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA). Recycling allows for reuse of tax-exempt bonds that are only needed for a few years, far short of the potential years of tax-exempt financing possible with private activity bonds. While it may seem to be inefficient to allocate any of the tax-exempt bonding authority to be used for just a few years, the interrelationship between taxexempt bonds and housing credits requires an initial level of bond financing that will no longer be needed once a project has completed construction and been placed in service. At that point a developer can sell the housing credits and use the proceeds to reduce the amount of debt to a level that can be supported with rents at affordable levels.

The ability to recycle these short-term bonds has meant that years of tax-exempt financing do not have to be sacrificed when using housing bonds to fund affordable housing. HERA, though, did limit the use of recycled bonds to “residential rental projects,” thereby excluding their use for economic development and single-family programs. Those programs accordingly continue to place demands on volume cap. Moreover, HERA imposed restrictions on the recycling: The recycled bonds had to be issued within six months of the repayment of the original loan and could not be

used with housing credits.

Even with these limitations, HERA helped enormously. For New York State alone, it brought nearly $2 billion more in recycled tax-exempt–bond financing to multifamily rental housing.

A simple tweak to the tax code could lessen the competition for the volume cap by allowing states and localities to use recycled bonds for any eligible purpose. In this way, more, if not all, of the volume cap could be used to generate as-of-right housing credits for affordable multifamily rental projects, while still allowing for the funding of eligible economic development projects and single-family mortgage programs using recycled bonds.

For New York State, my analysis of the allocation of volume cap over the last five years shows that over 87 percent was used for affordable housing. This tweak could free up an additional annual average of $245 million in volume cap that could be used for multifamily deals with as-of-right housing credits.

Other states that are strapped for volume cap would also be able to more effectively utilize the volume cap for the production of affordable multifamily housing.

Another modification that could further facilitate using recycled bonds for any and all eligible uses would be expanding from six months to a year the time limit on using recycled bonds after the paydown of the original loan.

Conclusion

Expanding the activities eligible for recycled private activity bonds would be a true gamechanger.

In New York State alone, this change could annually free up as-of-right housing credits on an additional $245 million in bonding authority. And it would not require any reduction of focus on other eligible uses such as homeownership and economic development.

By eliminating the need for eligible uses to compete over the private activity bond cap, the full potential of the existing authority for housing credits could be realized. Of course, tax-exempt private activity bonds will first have to be preserved in any potential taxreform legislation.

Mark Willis is the senior policy fellow at the NYU Furman Center. For more details on the source and use of the data for this analysis, contact the author at mark. willis@nyu.edu.

NOV. 1 – 7, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 15

Investment Likely to Spur Growth

BY THE NEW YORK BUILDING CONGRESS

NEW YORK – Thanks to a white-hot residential market and the strongest level of office construction in a quarter century, New York City construction activity has returned to the heights achieved at the peak of the previous building boom in 2007 and 2008, according to New York City Construction Outlook 2015-2017, an annual forecast and analysis prepared by the New York Building Congress with support from the New York Building Foundation.

The Building Congress forecasts New York City construction spending of $39.0 billion in 2015, a 10 percent increase from 2014, when spending reached $35.4 billion.

The Building Congress expects construction spending to increase even further—to $41.0 billion in 2016 and $40.8 billion in 2017. If the forecast holds, overall New York City construction spending would break the $40 billion barrier next year for the first time in New York City history.

Employment Construction employment in the five boroughs is poised to reach 130,900 jobs in 2015—an increase of 3,300 jobs from 2014. If realized, employment would surpass 130,000 jobs for just the second time since at least 1995 (the earliest year in which the Building Congress has reliable data). The high-water mark for construction employment over the period was 132,600 jobs in 2008.

The Building Congress anticipates New York City construction employment to reach 130,400 jobs in 2016 and 131,800 in 2017.

Adjusting for Inflation While 2015 and 2016 spending are expected to set consecutive records in terms of actual construction dollars spent, both years would fall just a shade below the prior building boom—after factoring for the effects of inflation.

In 2007, $31.1 billion in actual dollars was spent on New York City construction, which equates to $40.3 billion in spending when measured in constant 2015 dollars. That would put it 3 percent ahead of this year’s forecast and 1 percent in front of projected 2016 construction spending in terms of the amount of work actually delivered.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, this year’s forecasted spending on residential and nonresidential buildings is 32 percent greater than the total for 2007. Conversely, 2015 government spending on infrastructure projects is expected to be 38 percent lower than in 2007 after factoring in the effects of inflation.

“The numbers bear out what most in the industry have long suspected—the current building boom is being driven to a remarkable extent by private-sector investment,” said New York Building Congress President Richard T. Anderson. “The residential sector, in particular, is on a run that is nothing short of epic.”

Residential The Building Congress forecasts $14.9 billion in residential spending in 2015, an increase of 23 percent from 2014, when spending reached a then-record $12.1 billion. This would be a 468 percent increase from five years ago, when housing construction dropped to a postrecession low of $2.6 billion.

The Building Congress estimates that 36,850 units of new housing will be produced in 2015, an increase of 16,400 units from 2014. The forecasted number of newly constructed units in 2015 would top the previous peak of

16 | NYJLIFE.COM | NOV. 1 – 7, 2017

33,150 units produced in 2008. The forecast calls for 30,000 new units and $11.5 billion of residential spending in 2016, and 27,000 units and $10.5 billion in spending in 2017.

Nonresidential Nonresidential construction, which includes office space, institutional development, government buildings, sports/entertainment venues and hotels, is forecast to reach $11.6 billion in 2015, up from $9.9 billion a year ago.

It would be the second time in New York City history that nonresidential spending topped the $10 billion mark.

(Nonresidential spending reached $13.7 billion in 2010.)

Nonresidential spending is expected to take another substantial leap forward—to $15.0 billion in 2016—and then settle in at $14.0 billion in 2017.

The Building Congress expects that office construction will account for approximately 40 percent of all spending in this sector, and 12 percent of overall construction spending, in 2015.

Government The Building Congress forecasts $12.6 billion in 2015 public-works spending, which includes investments in mass transit, roads, bridges and other essential infrastructure. This is down from $13.4 billion in both 2013 and 2014, and, if realized, would mark the lowest level of infrastructure spending in actual dollars since 2006, when spending reached $11.8 billion. The Building Congress anticipates government spending will rise to $14.5 billion in 2016 and $16.3 billion in 2017.

After adjusting for inflation, 2015 government spending is forecast to be at its lowest level since 2001 and down 38 percent from its peak year of 2008. Even the forecast of $16.3 billion in spending for 2017 would fall short of the inflation-adjusted investments that were made annually from 2005 through 2012.

“It is remarkable that New York City is poised to reach such heights in spending in a year in which government spending on transportation and other infrastructure projects is declining,” said Building Congress Chairman Thomas Scarangello. “Such declines in government spending should be a source of concern in any year, but even more so in this period of skyrocketing private investment and solid economic growth. Hopefully, the tentative agreement recently announced by Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to fully fund the MTA fiveyear capital plan will be the start of an upward trend in overall infrastructure investment.”

Building Foundation Chairman John M. Dionisio added, “New York City is at or near all-time highs in terms of residents, jobs, tourists, commuters and students, which is helping to fuel the building boom. At the same time, all of these people and activity are putting extraordinary pressure on an aging infrastructure system that sustains the city’s economy and quality of life. Unfortunately, after years of straining to keep pace with new development, New York City is now in danger of falling farther behind.

The recently completed 7 line extension and the ongoing work on the Second Avenue Subway are great examples of the types of forward-looking investments that are necessary to support New York’s continued long-term growth.”

Priorities and Recommendations The Building Congress identified a number of challenges that need to be addressed in order to sustain and build upon the city’s current building boom, and offered the following recommendations:

Transportation and Infrastructure New York State and City leaders must finalize their tentative agreement to fund the MTA’s five-year capital plan. Ideally, their agreement will include new, dedicated revenue streams rather than relying on even larger amounts of debt financing to close the gap.

Now that all parties have recognized the urgent need for a new trans-Hudson commuter rail connection and have committed to share the financial burden, it is up to the federal government, along with governors Cuomo and Christie, to come up with a workable plan to design, finance and build it.

New York City’s congressional delegation must work to pass a long-term surface transportation bill that recognizes the importance of the nation’s urban transit systems.

Given the great success of the Tappan Zee Bridge project, the Cuomo administration and the New York State Legislature should pass legislation enabling local governments to also make use of design-build contracting and public-private partnerships on major infrastructure projects.

Housing The real estate and construction labor communities must extend their decades-long spirit of cooperation and interdependence by creating a workable framework for the continuation of the 421-a program, which is a key component of Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing agenda.

The de Blasio administration and City Council should ramp up their efforts to spur new housing for residents at all income levels through a series of strategic rezoning initiatives, such as the one that has already been proposed for East New York.

Innovation and Safety The recent surge in construction activity has coincided with an increase in worksite injuries and fatalities, particularly on nonunion jobs. The design, construction and real estate industry must not treat these occurrences as the inevitable byproduct of the building boom. Instead, all stakeholders must redouble their efforts to ensure that workers are being properly trained and supervised and that best safety practices are being replicated at job sites throughout the five boroughs.

The building industry and government must work together to improve project delivery in a host of areas, including more streamlined procurement processes, updated work rules and a renewed emphasis on workforce development.

To ensure maximum benefit for all of this construction activity, the building community must seek to reclaim its role as an incubator for construction innovation and promote best practices throughout the industry.

Insurance reform is urgently needed to overcome the costly effects of the “Scaffold Law,” which include higher insurance premiums and more limited availability of insurance/liability coverage, that threaten the size of public capital programs and construction jobs.

The New York Building Congress prepared New York City Construction Outlook 2015-2017 with the assistance of Urbanomics, an economic consulting firm.

It incorporates reviews of U.S. Census Bureau and private construction data as well as public capital budgets and plans at the city, state and federal levels. The New York Building Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the New York Building Congress, co-sponsored the report.

HOUSING

Brooklyn Developments Raise Concerns

BY STAFF PHOTO COURTESY OF RAYMOND CHAN ARCHITECTS

New York City’s constant population growth and increasing diversity are forcing development to keep pace.

“You don’t build for now,” the saying goes. “You build for five, seven, 10 years down the road.” If that’s the case, our city will only have more residential towers, office buildings, infrastructure upgrades, school construction and retail development for the foreseeable future.

The problem is this: Not all development is equal. Some of it is done well and welcomed by the surrounding community; some is met by (sometimes severe) community opposition. In many cases this negativity is unjustified, motivated by an unreasonable “not in my backyard” attitude. But sometimes it’s based on appropriate concerns.

Consider 1 Brooklyn Bay, in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay. This 30-story residential tower is by far the tallest building of all the surrounding neighborhoods, four times taller than any other buildings nearby. It is a mixed condo and rental development that has area residents—who live in co-op or rental apartment buildings, or in private homes—calling it “a monstrosity.”

Priced far higher than other rentals or purchases in the area, this luxury high-rise is the first of what will likely be many more in the area, each also likely to face stiff opposition. Given that their neighborhood is residential and very far from the crowded Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn skylines, Sheepshead Bay residents make a strong case for no more buildings like 1 Brooklyn Bay. A massive mixed-use development

on 8th Avenue at 62nd Street on the border of Sunset Park and North Dyker Heights, not far from Borough Park, has been discussed for several years— and has also met with community opposition most of the way. It was originally slated to be the location of a Home Depot before the bottom fell out of the market. The revised model is a nearly city-block–size project, and is slated to include at least two towers of apartments, offices and hotels, built above a retail base foundation.

A recent report issued by the Fund for the Advancement of New York City presented several concerns for this large project, from infrastructure (How are people getting there and around?

Where are they parking? Which schools are they using?) to whether the overall development fits with the surrounding communities’ character.

Reading between the lines, it’s possible to see some anti-Asian bias: The development area has become popular with Chinese families and businesses, causing longtime residents to worry that this part of Brooklyn will become unrecognizable to them.

If the Sheepshead Bay project was about the physical landscape of a neighborhood, the Sunset Park development is about diversity and changing demographics. This development is smack in the middle of rapidly growing Jewish and Chinese communities—and competing public and private interests—in an alreadydense area. As such, the revamped proposal looks to have an uphill road ahead of it. It will be up to the various stakeholders and community leaders to walk the fine line of providing value to the investors, and delivering what is

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BEDFORD UNION ARMORY

best for the community, in a thoughtful argument to the local interests, the area community board, public officials and opinion-shapers throughout Brooklyn, and the wider city—and then to City Hall directly.

Proposals for new use of the sprawling armory building in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights have sparked heated, important discussions of gentrification, and are at the heart of the “responsible and sustainable growth” trend currently on the tip of most community leaders’ and stakeholders’ tongues these days regarding large-scale developments in New York City. The most recent plans for redevelopment of the armory face opposition from Brooklyn’s elected class, as well as from a majority of community groups in and around the site. Opponents now include Borough President Eric Adams, Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, Public Advocate Tish James and others.

As developments go, the proposed mockup for the armory was Xanadusize in scale. Boldfaced names like Carmelo Anthony, among others, gave the plans local credibility and pizzazz.

However, feedback from community leaders was key in delaying, and nearly killing, the new design for the historic Crown Heights facility. A very contentious decision was made earlier this week by the Planning Commission to move the project forward, with vocal community opposition. The meeting at which the project was approved to move forward saw two arrested.

Large development projects raise issues that reflect what our city is about, how it sees itself and what it aspires to be.

NOV. 1 – 7, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 17

ELECTION PREVIEW

A Peek at the Hamodia Debate for Greenfield’s Replacement Candidates vying to replace Councilman David Greenfield clashed at the Hamodia debate this past weekend. The frontrunner, Kalman Yeger, a former senior aide to Greenfield, went heads up against Yoni Hikind and Heshy Tischler.

We feature here a selection of Tweets from the #HamodiaDebate hashtag to give our readers an overview of the proceedings.

18 | NYJLIFE.COM | NOV. 1 – 7, 2017

ELECTION PREVIEW

Bill de Blasio Donor Claims He Received Favors, Control for Illicit $160,000 Contribution (JTA) — A Bill de Blasio donor, who is a felon-turned-government-witness, said his donation of $160,000 to the election campaign of the mayor of New York gave him access and input into municipal nominations.

Jona Rechnitz, 34, who in March pleaded guilty to making contributions in exchange for advantageous treatment from government officials, testified Oct. 26 at Manhattan District courthouse in the bribery trial of former city corrections union chief Norman Seabrook, the New York Post reported.

Rechnitz is accused of bribing Seabrook to get him to invest $20 million in union pension money in a hedge fund tied to one of Rechnitz’s friends, Murray Huberfeld. Rechnitz and Huberfeld are both Jewish.

The actions attributed to them and Seabrook are part of a larger scandal exposed last year, involving highranking New York police officers who are accused of selling various services to businessmen.

When questioned about his ties to the a­ dministration, Rechnitz said that during the 2013 campaign, he and de Blasio spoke of “who he should be

appointing for certain positions.” De Blasio’s spokesperson flatly denied Rechnitz’s claims.

After the elections, Rechnitz continued to remain in contact with de Blasio, attending his events and making donations to various projects led by the mayor, he said. And Rechnitz would request favors from de Blasio fundraiser Ross Offinger, he added.

One favor involved a friend’s massive water bill, he said. Another concerned violations Rechnitz faced for a tenant’s subletting of a residence on Airbnb.

“I always gave money, as long as I was seeing him produce results,” Rechnitz said of Offinger. “Whenever we would call him for access or for a f­avor, we were getting the response that we expected and the results we were expecting.”

Mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips dismissed the felon’s claims.

“These are nothing but reheated, repackaged accusations that have been extensively reviewed and passed on by authorities at multiple levels,’’ Phillips told the Post. “The administration has never and will never make government decisions based on campaign contributions.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at City Hall in New York, Sept. 21, 2015 PHOTO BY SETH WENIG/AP IMAGES

NOV. 1 – 7, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 19

PERSPECTIVE

Here’s Why I Believed Elie Wiesel’s Accuser

BY LIOR ZALTZMAN

JTA COLLAGE

NEW YORK (JTA) — When I read the headline of Jenny Listman’s Medium piece—“When I was nineteen years old, Elie Wiesel grabbed my ass”—I decided not to click on it.

It wasn’t because of any judgment I passed on her or the veracity of her claim. But the bluntness and clarity of her headline was, in the worst of ways, transporting—or as the youth like to say, triggering.

Not having even read the piece, I knew I believed it, believed her. I believed that as a 19-year-old attending a Jewish fundraiser in 1989, she was fondled by the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor as they posed for a group photograph.

I’d like to clarify that I don’t think that just because I believe something, there is an obligation for news outlets like the JTA to publish a story about it. We need to be thoughtful before we publish anything, especially something as serious as an allegation of unwanted sexual contact. We need to confirm certain basic facts: that the accusers are who they say they are, that they were where they claimed to be—and, when possible, get a response from the other side.

But as a woman, I make the choice to believe victims whenever I can. I know how important it is to stand in solidarity with other women when so often our experiences are less likely to be believed.

What has been especially surprising about the rise of #MeToo, the popular internet campaign that has victims of sexual assault and harassment sharing their experiences, has been the incredulous response from men. We have been telling our experiences for months and years, yet men still insist they did not know.

From my own experiences and what I’ve heard from other women and queer and nonbinary people, I know just how common sexual harassment and

20 | NYJLIFE.COM | NOV. 1 – 7, 2017

assault are. They are carried out by strangers in the street and by men we believed in, who we thought were “good guys.” Which is why these allegations are never surprising, to me at least.

Another thing that was not surprising to me was the propensity—especially by men (and of course by some women)—to doubt Listman’s story and disparage her for telling it.

Even in Listman’s own tale, the response from her then-boyfriend is particularly telling: When she told him about Wiesel’s squeezing her behind, he responded with incredulity, “He must have had his hand on your waist. Are you sure?”

Women’s experiences of pain, emotional and physical, are often doubted or downgraded. Recent studies show that women are 13 to 24 percent less likely to be treated with opioids for pain than men, and that they have to wait longer to receive pain medication in emergency rooms. Our pain, quite literally, is simply taken less seriously.

I’ve seen people dissecting Listman’s pain and trauma, so clearly depicted in her Medium piece, in the most ungenerous of ways. They’ll say that she couldn’t have been so traumatized by an action as minor as having her butt squeezed. It seems to me to be just another case of casting doubt on a woman’s pain.

I worry that in reporting the onslaught of stories on sexual assault, harassment and rape, we all become accountants of pain or gravity. Stories like those of Harvey Weinstein and James Toback, of Bill O’Reilly and Terry Richardson, offer gruesome accounts of serial harassment, abuse and assault. There is wide consensus that these serial predators should get what they deserve. But if someone carries out an act of

sexual assault only once, is it any less of a violation?

In only reporting the “major” offenders, are we saying the isolated incidents are somehow OK? According to a federally funded study, the prevalence of false reporting in cases of sexual assault is between 2 and 10 percent. Despite those incredibly low numbers, according to the study, survivors who come forward often “face scrutiny or encounter barriers” from investigators. You know what has a high likelihood? That women won’t report assault and men won’t be convicted of it.

As to the conversation about Elie Wiesel’s “legacy,” the legacies of great men and women are always more complicated than we are comfortable admitting. And the legacies of men with power are often intertwined with abuses of that power.

There is nothing “Jewish” about the scandals surrounding Weinstein or Toback, or the allegation about Elie Wiesel—except to the degree that the Jewish media claim them as members of the “community.” Theirs are stories about men in positions of power abusing the less-powerful or the powerless. That’s what binds the narratives pouring forth from women on Facebook and the mainstream media. We should be able to acknowledge the legacy of a man like Wiesel without ignoring the possibility that he was flawed.

But the comments about protecting the legacy of Elie Wiesel are, intentionally or not, upholding another legacy: the legacy of believing men over women and sweeping the truths of women under the carpet.

Lior Zaltzman is the social-media editor for 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company.

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COMMUNITY AND EVENTS

A Hebrew Charter School Takes a Not-SoJewish Trip to Israel

BY BEN SALES

NEW YORK (JTA) — On her first trip to Israel next month, eighth-grader Melodee Pouponneau is excited to visit Tel Aviv and eat Israeli foods. She’s also looking forward to practicing Hebrew, her third language.

It will be a stark change from her home life in Brooklyn, where she speaks Haitian Creole and typically eats foods from the Caribbean nation where her parents were born.

Pouponneau, 12, isn’t Jewish, but she’s confident she’ll be able to carry on a conversation with Israelis when she visits the Jewish state. As a student at Hebrew Language Academy, a Hebrew-language charter school in Brooklyn, she’s been studying Hebrew and Israeli culture since kindergarten.

“I feel excited because it’s not uncomfortable for me because I speak Hebrew,” she said. “If I go to Israel

not speaking Hebrew at all, that would be weird.”

Pouponneau is one of 33 eighth-graders from two Hebrew-language charter schools who are traveling to Israel on a class trip. The trip aims to give the students a firsthand look at the language and culture they’ve learned about in class. But because the schools are publicly funded, the program has to straddle a thin line: Throughout the 10-day trip, the aim is to immerse students in Israeli culture—but without being overtly Jewish or taking a political stance.

Unlike Jewish day schools, which are private, Hebrew charter schools receive taxpayer dollars and are free and open to students of all backgrounds.

Because of that, they can’t give their students religious education—though they can teach a particular language, culture and history. The two schools taking the trip—Hebrew Language Academy and Hatikvah

First-graders learn Israeli dance at Hebrew Language Academy, a Brooklyn charter school that teaches Hebrew and Israeli culture, but not Judaism.

PHOTO BY BEN SALES

22 | NYJLIFE.COM | NOV. 1 – 7, 2017

International Academy in East Brunswick, New Jersey—are both part of Hebrew Public, a national network of four Hebrew charter schools it directly manages and six affiliates.

During a reporter’s visit to the Brooklyn school earlier last week, first-graders were learning Israeli dance while third-graders took a Hebrew proficiency exam. Meanwhile, the eighth-graders—preparing for the trip—did a unit on sabich (pronounced sahBEEKH), an Israeli egg-and-eggplant sandwich.

Mira Yusupov, a Hebrew teacher, explained that the curriculum eschews traditional grammar lessons in favor of learning everyday vernacular conversation.

“There’s no Alef-Bet,” she said, referring to teaching the Hebrew alphabet by rote. “If they’re going to a coffee place, we teach the skills rather than the language—how to order stuff.”

Yusupov, who will be accompanying the students on the trip, hopes the experience will bring Israeli culture to life. The 10-day excursion follows an itinerary with many of the same stops as Birthright, the free 10-day trips to Israel for young Jewish adults.

The middle-school trip will start in Tel Aviv, with visits to a tech hub and outdoor markets. The students will take a camel ride in a touristy Bedouin village, float in the Dead Sea, hike up to the ancient fortress of Masada, and spend a few days in Jerusalem and then some time at a kibbutz up north.

But because the trip isn’t Jewish, it departs from the Birthright checklist. The kids won’t visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum—on a previous trip to Washington, they visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum—but will visit a mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa and a Druze village. They will also stop by Hand-in-Hand, a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem, and Kids4Peace, a youth group for Israeli and Palestinian kids. They’ll visit the Western Wall on Friday night, but won’t pray there, and that night’s dinner won’t include communal blessings over wine and challah.

“We’re not going to try to edit out anything Jewish, per se, but I think that the kind of reflections and conversations we have are not going to be around Jewish identity,” said Jessica Lieberman, Hebrew Public’s director of Israel studies. “We’re not going to delve into ‘What does it mean to be an American Jew who comes to see these things?’”

Hebrew Language Academy was founded in 2009 with private funding from Michael Steinhardt— who also funds Birthright—and other Jewish philanthropists who founded the Hebrew Public network. It’s one of about a dozen Hebrew-language charter schools nationwide. Now, the school runs entirely on public funds, and chooses its students by lottery from its local school district. Hebrew Language Academy estimates that about 50 percent of its students are Jewish, along with a large population of students of Caribbean descent.

Because of that, it faces the challenge of not being “too Jewish” on a daily basis. The school avoids teaching Judaism by focusing entirely on language instruction and Israel education, like learning about food, music, geography and history. But at first glance, the school could be mistaken for a Jewish day school:

COMMUNITY AND EVENTS

Third-graders take a Hebrew exam at Hebrew Language Academy.

PHOTO BY BEN SALES

Hebrew phrases adorn the walls and the classrooms are named after Israeli cities, with Israeli and American flags hanging from the walls.

“We built a dual-language school with an appreciation of Hebrew language and Israel,” said Peter Katcher, the head of school. “The genesis of the [Israel] trip was as a culmination of this many years of study. The most important part of this is to have the respect and understanding of the culture.”

As such, while specifically religious issues will be avoided on the trip, students will dip their toes into the Israeli-Arab conflict. The kids will visit the embattled Gaza border town of Sderot and the Lebanese border, where they will hear a talk from a local security expert. They will also hear a lecture by a legislator from the Labor party.

“The conflict is obviously an important part of Israel and learning about Israel,” Lieberman said. “It’s not the main part of the trip. I also want to see what the students know and what their questions are because we built into this trip lots of different encounters with lots of different people.”

And while Katcher said the group will stay out of the West Bank, they will visit eastern Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed but the international

community views as occupied territory.

The itinerary includes a stop at the City of David, a Jewish-run archaeological park open to tourists in the hotly contested eastern Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Silwan. Lieberman said the visit will focus on archaeology, and that the school didn’t consider the park’s location while planning the trip.

A trip to Israel is not inherently political or religious—just as a trip to France and the Notre-Dame Cathedral isn’t inherently Catholic, said Shaul Kelner, a Jewish Studies professor at Vanderbilt University, who focuses on Diaspora Jewish travel to Israel.

“Language and culture are intimately connected,” he said. “The language instruction overall is never just about learning to speak in a different code. It’s about learning the culture connected to that code.”

As it happens, for at least some of the kids going on the trip, the complexities of politics and religion are at best an afterthought. Justin Matushansky, 14, went to Israel last year to celebrate his bar mitzvah with his family. He’s mostly excited to eat when he returns in November.

“They have really good burgers,” he said. “They had free samples of falafel. I want to try pita for falafel.”

NOV. 1 – 7, 2017 | NYJLIFE.COM | 23

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