Comments on: East Brooklyn: Synagogues Turn Churches

By: leslie215

leslie215 — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:10:46 +0000

i was wondering if anyone knows of aguda israel of ridgewood .is it still there? onething is still true we jews run away fron our own faster then we ran from bad areas

By: thanbo

thanbo — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:09:25 +0000

Both of the shuls founded by my elter-zeide are still used for Jewish purposes today. The Brooklyn Jewish Center is now Oholei Torah/Oholei Menachem, one of the Lubavitch boys’ schools; Cong. Bnai Israel in Fleischmanns, NY, is currently affiliated Conservative.

By: mdlevine

mdlevine — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:39:46 +0000

sammygol – it is sad for the following reason: Paterson once had a Chief several butcher shops, many Shuls (some that were literally built by my Great-Grandfather) even a Chief Rabbi and a Kosher Hospital, but, like so many communities of that bygone era, they didn’t have Yeshivas for the kinder. if there were Yeshivas for the children and grandchildren, perhaps Paterson would still be flourishing like other communities. it is a sad story played throughout America.

By: bklynmom

bklynmom — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:00:33 +0000

25# BTW Would love to hear the fat lady sing Hatikva. From what I recall from my baisyaakov days, the beis hamikdesh will be in Yerushayalim which is where the Yidden will rise again as a nation of kohenim and kings, is that not the facts!!

By: mdlevine

mdlevine — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:18:32 +0000

On Sunday I took my children on a drive through Paterson, NJ where my Grandparents O’BM and my Mother O’BM were born and raised. The synagogue where my Mother was married has a large for-sale sign out front.

I drove by what used to be the Shul that I would go to with my Grandfather when I would visit him… it is no longer a Shul – very sad. Like so many other communities, the children moved away – in this case Fairlawn, Passaic and elsewhere.

outside of the Yeshiva Gedola of Paterson, there are not many Yidden residing in Paterson anymore.

By: sayitlikeitis

sayitlikeitis — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:33:33 +0000

Shuls will continue to become houses of other religions, daycare centers and others,,since our future has been ensured as a nation in Eretz Yisroel and NO WHERE else. We can keep taking photos and publish archives as a memory for our grandkids.

By: Milhouse

Milhouse — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:15:00 +0000

Of course sometimes it works the other way. Jews move into a neighbourhood, goyim move out, and a church becomes a shul.

The history of the building that is now the Brick Lane Mosque in the East End London is a particularly good example. The East End, like the Lower East Side of NY, was always the cheap part of town, where new immigrants first settled; when they became established and could afford it, they would move somewhere better. So it has a long history of changing demographics.

The building was originally built in 1742 as a Huguenot church. When the Huguenot refugees became wealthy and moved out of the neighbourhood, they sold it to a missionary group which wasn’t very successful, and it soon became a Methodist church. In 1898 it became a shul, Machzikei Hadass, and it was one of the biggest shuls in London until the War. The East End bore the brunt of the Blitz (the Duke St Shul, which was the oldest shul in the UK and the headquarters of the United Synagogue, was destroyed by a German bomb), and most Jews left the area and never came back. Eventually the shul was sold, and in 1976 it became a mosque.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:25:09 +0000

A mosque is not as bad as a church — while worships avoida zora (unlike a mosque.)

By: manishma

manishma — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:19:31 +0000

#16, either way it’s bad but at least in a mosque there aren’t any getchkes.

By: chai_chai_chai

chai_chai_chai — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:57:03 +0000

Jews in the US have been blessed with incredible affluence which enabled them to move out of the inner cities and ghettos. stop complaining every time Hashem does anything good for you.