Boro Park, Brooklyn – Last week, Community Board 12 met with the offices of the Mayor, Borough
President and Attorney General, New York City’s Fire, Sanitation, Transportation and Police
Departments, along with community leaders, community organizations and elected officials. The
meeting was held to review plans in anticipation of the upcoming Pesach Holiday. Communal
procedures were decided upon to ensure that Pesach preparations and festivities would proceed in a
safe manner.
The meeting follows an annual tradition, instituted by Rabbi Edgar Gluck in 1966, of hosting a
multi-agency conference to facilitate the coordination of Pesach planning. Prior to commencing,
Chairman Yidel Perlstein paid tribute to Rabbi Jack Mayer, founder of Misaskim, who was always a
large part of this meeting. Sadly, this was the second Pesach meeting held without him. Yehi Zichro
Baruch.
Bread Burning Schedule: Bread burning will occur on Monday, April 22 nd . All bread burning must
be completed by 11:34 am. FDNY will enforce this 11:34 deadline for the safety of our community.
Once the deadline has passed, FDNY will put out the fires. DSNY will then collect and dispose of all
that’s left over and clean the sites.
Fires will be done at designated locations only. Please check the attached map for locations, some
sites were relocated in response to feedback from last year. Fires will be completely fenced off by
barriers. The perimeter will be strictly enforced by Shomrim and NYPD.
Please adhere to the following simple rules to ensure the safety of our loved ones during this holiday and make collections easier and faster:
Only Chometz Gamor should be burned, as required. Household trash is not Chometz and should be
disposed of as regular trash. There is no chumra requiring the burning of cardboard boxes or any
other potentially flammable non-Chometz items. In fact, it may even be contrary to the halachos
requiring safety. Extra trash in fires leads to fires growing to unsafe heights. Do not throw Chometz
enclosed in silver foil into the fire, it will not burn. Additionally, please keep a close watch on any
children you bring along. They are your responsibility.
DO NOT throw any flammable or combustible items into the fire, including paint thinners, aerosol
cans, sprays, lighter fluid, any liquid that is used to ignite the fire or any other flammable liquid. Do
not throw bottles, both glass and plastic, into the fire. There was an incident a couple of years ago
when an aerosol can was thrown into a fire. This resulted in injuries to a Shomrim member and to a
child. You want to spend Seder night at the Seder, not in the hospital ch’v.
A complete list of approved fire sites is attached. The fire sites will be supervised by volunteers from Shomrim and Chaveirim; please follow their instructions.
The Police and Fire Departments will not allow any unsanctioned fires, either on the streets or
in dumpsters. They will be on the lookout for any of these fires and will extinguish them
immediately. We ask the community to please be considerate of the hard work that goes into
setting this up.
Sanitation Pickup Schedule: DSNY already began collecting all extra Pesach related garbage, including bulk items. We ask that you place your garbage out as early as possible on your designated collection days so DSNY can collect it all over this last week before Pesach. Though there will be extra trucks collecting the expected increase in trash, they cannot collect everything at the last minute. So, please do not wait until the last minute to put out your extra garbage so as not to overload the trucks.
The Sanitation Department will collect all the trash in the district from midnight April 21 st (Sunday
night), Erev Pesach, in the following manner: All recycling will be collected during the midnight to
8 am shift.
The rest of the garbage will be collected from 6 am throughout the day. We ask that you place all
your trash out for collection on bedikas chumets night. Please do not wait until the last pre-
Pesach collection so that all trash can be picked up.
DSNY provided us with a dedicated missed collection hotline to be used only on Erev Pesach. The
hotline, 718-449-2671, will be active from 12:00 noon till 8:00 at the end of the day. Please do not
call in missed collections until after 1 pm. All missed collections that are reported will be collected.
Please be advised that all bulk items and cardboard boxes should be tied up and placed out neatly.
Mattresses and box springs must be entirely wrapped, preferably in a store-bought bed bug bag or in
plastic, to be collected.
Sanitation will provide dumpsters at designated sites for garbage drop-offs starting Monday, April
15. These dumpsters will be serviced daily to make sure there is space as needed. A list of these
dumpster locations and burn sites is being published along with this press release. It is illegal to
place anything other than household trash in these containers. In previous years there has been
commercial dumping, especially construction materials, at these sites. DSNY will, like last year,
have Sanitation Enforcement dispatched to monitor these sites. Illegal disposals will result in fines. It
is not only illegal to dump construction garbage, but also highly inconsiderate. Doing so leaves no
room for the household trash other residents are trying to dispose of.
Community Safety: NYPD will be deploying additional resources to ensure the community’s
safety. There will be round-the-clock police coverage by Shomer Shabbos at 53 rd Street and 13 th
Avenue and by Landau’s Shul at Avenue L and East 9 th Street. Feel free to approach these police
officers with any issues. There will also be patrol cars driving throughout the district on the first
two nights of Pesach as an increased security measure for those out late after the Sedarim. The
NYPD will continually patrol throughout Pesach, especially during the Yom Tov days.
The following are the attendees of this year’s meeting: Joel Eisdorfer, Senior Advisor to Mayor Eric
Adams. The FDNY delegation consisted of Brooklyn Borough Commander, Assistant Chief Dean
Koester; Staten Island Borough Commander, Assistant Chief Brian Gorman; Deputy Chief Russel
Regan, Division 11; Battalion Chief Steven Gough, Battalion 48; Captain Michael Doda of Ladder
Company #148; and Borough Manager Sandra Sanchez, Office of External Affairs. Joining them
from the Department of Sanitation was Assistant Chief Thomas Sica; Deputy Chief David DiOrio
and Superintendent John La Spina from BK12. Joining them from the NYPD was Commanding
Officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, Assistant Chief Charles McEvoy; Commanding Officer
of NYPD Community Affairs, Deputy Chief Ritchie Taylor; Commanding Officer of Brooklyn
South Community Affairs, Lieutenant Ira Jablonsky; 66 th Precinct Commanding Officer, Captain
Kenneth Herrarte; 66 th Precinct Community Affairs, Sergeant Wing Chan and Officer James
Jaiman. Representing the Department of Transportation was Brooklyn Community Coordinator
Leroy Branch and Advisor to the Commissioner Pinny Ringel. Representing the Borough President
was Yanky Eisdorfer; the Attorney General, Yoel Lefkowitz; Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein,
Shloimy Rieger. Representing the organizations who lead the coordination and safety of the events
was Mottie Katz, President of the 66 th Precinct Community Council & Shomrim Coordinator;
Shomrim Coordinators Heshy Kahana and Motty Brauner and Shomrim Member Shloimy Levy; as
well as the Coordinator of Staten Island Shomrim, Ari Weiss. Also in attendance were Rabbi Berish
Freilich, Senior Community Liaison; Bernie Gips, Senior Coordinator of Hatzalah; Chaim Fleischer,
Ari Fleischer and Shloimy Fleischman, Coordinators of Chaveirim; Shloimy Mayer and Meir Weill
from Misaskim.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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One Response
Every year the same thing: the maps and location listings are always placed on the website as low resolution tiny images. Regular size it’s too small to read for people at a certain age, and zoomed in it becomes pixelated and thus unreadable by anyone.
Time for YWN and all other websites to get into the 21st century and post this as a pdf or another useful format.