Exploring the Trump Administration's Statement on Jerusalem

Huffington Post Columnist

Micah Halpern

will be speak on

Jerusalem: 
Political Football or Eternal Capital

at the Old Broadway Synagogue
 on Shabbos Parashas Vayechi 
 (December 30, 2017) at kiddush. 

Please Join Us!

The Old Broadway Synagogue is located at 15 Old Broadway, which is half a block east of Broadway between 125th and 126th streets.

Micah D. Halpern is a columnist and a social and political commentator. He is a dynamic speaker who specializes in analyzing world events and evaluating their relevance for and impact upon Jewish communities at home and in Israel.

Halpern’s most recent book THUGS spent time on Amazon’s list of bestselling books, he is also the author of What You Need to Know About: Terror. He maintains The Micah Report www.micahhalpern.com, a daily commentary offering perspective and insight on important national and international issues. His range of subject matter is broad. Micah Halpern is also an expert on kosher wines - he reviews them, speaks about them and enjoys them.

His voice is recognized by listeners to talk radio across America and to his weekly feature, A Safer World, on USA Radio Network and his daily 1 minute feature I’ve Been Thinking on Town Square Radio Network.

His face is familiar to viewers on CBS, FOX, MSNBC and to those who watch documentaries on PBS, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, Discovery the Food Network. Micah is a regular commentator on Shalom TV. Following 9-11 he was the CBS-2 commentator on terror. On 9-11, 2003 he was the guest expert on ABC's The View.

Halpern, a syndicated columnist, is also a well-known social and political commentator, educator, and historian. He lectures frequently, both in the United States and Israel, on issues relating to terror, foreign affairs, Israel and the Middle East, as well as wine history, and popular culture. In 1997, Micah Halpern was appointed Israel columnist for America OnLine and continues, until today, to write a weekly, now syndicated, column on foreign affairs, the Middle East and terror.

Micah taught at Yale University and was a long-standing educator with Young Judaea. He has also taught at Brandeis University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Halpern continues to lecture to student groups in the fields of political terror and world terrorism, Middle East dynamics, Jewish history, Holocaust, Zionism and Israeli society and politics.

For fun, Micah Halpern writes a column on Kosher wines. He is one of the only exclusively kosher wine reviewers in the world.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at Old Broadway, 1944

Dear Friends,

I came across this damaged sign today at the Old Broadway Synagogue. It advertises that the Old Broadway Synagogue, Rabbi Chaim Shabsai Broyde and M. Bleicher, President, has invited the famous Cantor R. Yitzchok Eliezer Reinhold to lead Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, which will be on the 18th, 19th 26th and 27th of September 1944. If anyone has any recollections of what the shul was like in the 1940s, or knows something about R. Reinhold, please email me. Thank you!

Learning at Old Broadway

The Old Broadway Synagogue is proud to present two exciting learning opportunities (and breakfast) on alternate Sunday mornings (email us for the exact schedule) following 8:00am Shacharis:

Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chayes and His Defense of the Tradition

With Rabbi Elie Pollack


Join us for a spirited examination of the writing of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chayes, one of the leading19th centuries leading defenders of traditional Judaism, as he dives into the sea of rabbinic Judaism to demonstrate its logic, its beauty and its profound spirituality.

R' Elie Pollack grew up in The Detroit area but he now resides in Brooklyn as a kollel member in Torah V'daas. He merited to have a strong relationship with the late Rosh Yeshiva, the venerated R' Yisrael Belsky, in whose Yoreh Deah shiur he studied for the better part of a decade. When he is not studying or teaching, he enjoys public-speaking, writing, and translating. He had released two kuntreisim (pamphlets) regarding teachings of R' Belsky as well as a tribute to Detroit's late kollel pioneer, the beloved R' Moshe Schwab. He also has published two articles The Logic of the Orthodox Dating Sytem (March 2010) and The Downward Spiral of Golus (Dec. 2013) in The Five Towns Jewish Times.

He and his wife have been blessed with five wonderful children.

*************************

Inyanei d'Yoma: Spiritual Opportunities in the Jewish Calendar

With Rabbi Avi Heller

Join as as we explore the various holidays and fast days of the Jewish calendar and develop a deeper appreciation of their meaning for us as a community and for each of us as individuals. The upcoming shiurim are as follows:

July 16 - Eating Meat and Drinking Wine during the 3 Weeks

July 30 - What Are the Reasons the Beit ha-Mikdash was Destroyed?

Rabbi Avi Heller is the Regional Director for Synagogues in New Jersey and Rockland County. Originally from Denver, Colorado, Rabbi Heller has been the Director of Education for the Manhattan Jewish Experience and, prior to that, the co-director of the OU’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Boston University. He has also served as the Director of the Boca Raton Community Kollel, the Rabbi of the BRS West Synagogue and the Bronfman Fellow at Hillel International. He received his BA from Boston University, semicha from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and also completed his MA in Tanach from the Bernard Revel School of Graduate Studies. He and his wife Shira live in Teaneck, NJ.

Women's Rosh Chodesh Group

The Old  Broadway Synagogue is proud to have a monthly Women's Rosh Chodesh group. The meets after kiddush on the Shabbos preceeding Rosh Chodesh. It features presentations by its participants. New women are welcome!

For more information, please contact 
Rhonda Taylor Ramsuer 
at talkinghands303@yahoo.com 
or Laura Radensky 
at lauraradensky@gmail.com

Here are the dates of meetings for 5777:

2016

Cheshvan - October 29, 2016

Kislev - November 26, 2016

Tevet - December 24, 2016

2017

Shevat - January 28, 2017

Adar - February 25, 2017 

Nissan - March 25, 2017

Iyar - April 22, 2017

Sivan - May 20, 2017

Tammuz - June 24, 2017

Av - July 22, 2017

Elul - August 19, 2017

and September 16, 2017 is for Rosh Hashanah 

not Rosh Chodesh.

Sam and Dora Ratner and the Old Broadway Synagogue Sukkah

Four years ago, in 2010, we rebuilt our fixed sukkah in the back courtyard on foundation of the sukkah that was donated to the synagogue by Sam and Dora Ratner back in in 1954. Since this year is the sixtieth anniversary of that sukkah, it is appropriate to reflect on the Ratners and their contribution to the synagogue.

Before I go further, I should say that it was much that the Ratners donated the sukkah, they most likely donated the materials, but moreover, Sam built the sukkah with his own hands. And a great job he did at that since the sukkah was in operation until 2009 when the heavily reinforced roof flaps started pulling the walls apart.

Dorothy and Dora Ratner, middle to late 1940s.

According to Sam's grandson, Ken Ratner, Sam was born in 1897 in Zelva, Byelorussia, and came to the United States via Ellis Island. The origin of the name "Ratner" is shrouded in mystery, since the family's original name was "Bublatzky." One theory has it that the name was the maiden name of a woman who married into the family. Another theory is that the orignal name was changed at Ellis Island (I myself am usually suspicious of such stories, and on the Ellis Island site, one can find both names on the lists of arriving passengers). In any event, it seems to have been changed by Sam's father, Eliahu (Bublatzky) Ratner. Please click here for further notes on the Ratner family genealogy.

Sam opened a dry good store in lower Manhattan and later another one on White Plains Road in the Bronx, but lost these stores in the Depression. Later, he moved to Harlem and opened another dry goods store.

Ken and David Ratner and Abraham Klein, 1966

In 1921, Sam married Dora Sackinsky in Brooklyn. Sam and Dora son, Herbert, married Dorothy Rogoff in the late 1940s and had sons Robert, Ken and David. Herbert and Dorothy, their children and Dorothy's mother, Esther (Kiki) Rogoff,  lived at 160 Claremont, and then moved briefly into the Manhattanville Houses when they opened in 1961. After a few years, the family moved into 180 Claremont (where the Krets, the Rubinsteins, the Feigenblatts and the Libermans lived, among others). When Sam died in 1958 (four years after building the sukkah), Dora married member of the Old Broadway Synagogue, Abraham Klein Sometime in the 1970s, the Kleins moved to Florida, where Abraham died in 1979 and Dora died in 1996.

Esther Rogoff, 1985

Robert Ratner Bar Mitzvah Photo, 1963

When we decided the the sukkah built by Sam Ratner was no longer safe, we considered a couple different options. One would be to demolish the old sukkah and just put up a nylon sukkah, as many people in the suburbs have. The second option would be to recreate our original sukkah as best we could. In light of the fact that the old sukkah had served us well, and also because it was built in an old European style which included moveable roof flaps (compare with the images of the sukkos that appear in the extraordinary sukkah decoration was created by R. Aryeh Steinberger and hangs in the first floor of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan), we decided to recreate the sukkah that Sam Ratner built. We had to raise the money from a number of contributors to build the new sukkah, and because none of us had Sam Ratner's expertise, we hired Alex Myftarago, the contractor who rebuilt the roof, to build the new sukkah. As was noted above, the new sukkah was built upon the foundation of the old sukkah and largely along the same lines. To express our continuing thanks to the Ratners for nearly 50 years of the sukkah, we installed the old sukkah plaque next to the new one, which thanks our recent generous donors. Let's hope the new sukkah will last as long as the one it replaced!

Plaque thanking the Ratners on the left, and plaque thanking the contributors to the new sukkah on the right, 2010.