Bronx, NY – Neighbors of a shuttered synagogue in the Bronx want its apparent owners to clean up the trash that is accumulating on its property.
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Congregation Hope of Israel on Walton Avenue in the lower Grand Concourse neighborhood — once the hub of a vibrant Jewish community in the New York City borough — closed in 2006. The local television station News 12 reported this week that garbage is piling up on the property and no one is taking responsibility.
New York City’s Department of Sanitation told residents it cannot clean up the trash because the property does not belong to the city, News 12 reported.
“It’s disrespectful for any community,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Riverdale, a Bronx neighborhood. “It shouldn’t be this way.”
News 12 traced the ownership of the property to a post office box in Hartsdale, New York, in suburban Westchester County, but were unable to contact the man associated with the address. The man is said to be a board member of the synagogue.
Hope of Israel was the last functioning synagogue in the neighborhood, just behind the Bronx County Courthouse, when it closed. Its last rabbi died in 2003, when the Orthodox synagogue was barely able to make a 10-man minyan for prayers. For years the congregation board was led by Abraham D. Levy, a retired justice of the state Supreme Court who died in 2001.
Many more shul will suffer this fate on Brooklyn and queens with all young moving t lakewood
I did some research re. this topic a report states that in 1930 there were 365,000 jews living in this area of the bronx.In 1990s the number had dwindled to a bit over 2,000 , today probably there’s perhaps 500 . There were hundreds of congregations- large synagogue buildings, smaller shtebelich. a large yeshiva all gone and only a handful of their buildings are left standing ,that have become secular institutions or R.L churches
”oy mah hoya lonu” think about this on tisha b’av . Where are those families of jews today What happened to the lower east side, harlem, bed sty. ,brownsville , brighton beach, crown heights ,all of those once vibrant jewish communities Where are our brothers and sisters today.The sephardim say a kina on the night of tisha b’av that starts out ” ma nishtana ha lilah ha zeh ‘.
I am a local Rabbi and am available to help with the cleanup. Please contact me at my email to make arrangements. Rabbi S
Doesn’t anyone think the neighbors put the trash there to begin with? The shul has been out of use, the members came by only to throw trash there? Shouldn’t the neighbors take a bit of responsibility and clean up their own mess!