Long Beach Meets Sandy: Scenes of devastation from a once-bucolic South Shore community

By Heshy Rosenwasser

On Friday night, October 26, I was seated at the lively Shabbos table at the home of Rabbi Eli and Beila Goodman. Shabbos dinner at the Goodmans’ home, on the ground floor of the Casablanca apartment tower at the foot of Franklin Boulevard abutting Long Beach’s famed Boardwalk, is always special, often with many guests, great food, zemiros and words of Torah from the rabbi, the rebbetzin, the guests, and the children. This Friday night was no different, even with the spectre of a major storm brewing to the south of us. We were all aware of the forecasts; we were prepared to do what we had to do, protecting our homes and listening for instructions from local authorities. We were concerned, but we remembered last year’s Tropical Storm Irene, and we somehow knew that we’d get through it. 

We need another Shlomo

Last summer, I attended the 11th annual Carlebach shabbaton at the Young Israel of Long Beach, an event they hold every summer. And what it is, really, is that the YI is “taken over” for a Shabbos by “the chevreh,” i.e., about two dozen chasidim of Reb Shlomo who live mostly in the New York area. Some come from New England; others come from as far as Israel. All in all, it’s a revolving-door cast of the same characters who show up year after year. 

The thing is … these events remind me of nothing so much as a Southside Johnny concert. 

Jewish Living in Long Beach, New York

By Heshy Rosenwasser

[as submitted to Ami magazine, before editing for brevity]


Spread along one of the two barrier islands protecting the south shore of Nassau County, Long Island, the “City by the Sea” has an established Jewish community dating back to the early decades of the 20th century.

Although it is less than an hour away from midtown Manhattan and the Jewish metropolises of Brooklyn and Queens, and just over the Atlantic Beach Bridge from Far Rockaway and the Five Towns, Long Beach has a laid-back vibe more akin to what New Yorkers call “out of town.” New York City and its environs are within easy reach but as soon as you step off the train at the end of the LIRR’s Long Beach Branch, the sea air washes over you and you understand that the urban hassles are no longer relevant.

A thought for the Three Weeks, here in Flatbush

[The following is the full text of a piece I included in the regular column I write for the weekly Hamodia. Unfortunately, the editors saw fit to remove any of the parts relating directly to the Flatbush community before printing, and so the edge was taken out of the final version, leaving it as little more than a feel-good piece. Here it is, as intended and submitted.]

We are in the middle of the Three Weeks, the time in the middle of the summer when we remember the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, our holy city Yerushalayim, and the loss of our sovereignty over Eretz Yisrael. It is a time when many of our usual summer activities are curtailed. We walk around in something of an altered state, knowing that this curtailment of activities and our observance of semi-mourning customs are supposed to conduct us toward thoughts of our current galus and reasons why we are still in it after two thousand years.

Beach Town in the Off Season at OneTrueMedia.com

My first self-produced music video (as opposed to live footage) - from the album "Soul In Exile 2: Jersey Shore Baby" by THE HESH INC.

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Response to the responders to my Glenn Beck editorial.

כבדהו וחשדהו—respect him and suspect him.

Perhaps some “hakarat hatov” (recognition of good deeds done) is due to Glenn Beck for his support of Israel and bringing its plight to the world media with a positive spin. I will acknowledge that here, with a major dose of the respect-but-suspect that the Talmud enjoins. The reservations I have about the Beck phenomenon, which prompted me to write my editorial, are the same which cause Moshe Feiglin, leader of Manhigut Yehudit, and the staff of Jewish Israel, an Israel-based anti-missionary organization whose rabbinic advisor is the esteemed Rabbi Sholom Gold, to view Beck with the same suspicion.

The Golden Calf - An Alternate View of Glenn Beck's Appearances in Israel

The people and state of Israel, and the Jewish community around the world, is mesmerized by the appearance of television commentator Glenn Beck in Jerusalem, both for his address to the Knesset and for his ‘Restoring Courage’ rally near the Temple Mount. Love him or hate him—it is impossible to avoid him.

Beck has been given the red-carpet treatment by Knesset member Danny Danon, who showed him around the country and invited him to speak before the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee. Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger has gone so far as blessing Beck’s rally.

Have we gone mad?