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November 30, 2001/Kislev 15, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 12
Belle Harbor's Jews struggle to cope again
ELICIA BROWN AND JODI BODNER DUBOW
New York Jewish Week
NEW YORK - As investigators picked through the wreckage of American Airlines Flight 587 on the streets of Belle Harbor, the sizeable Jewish community there was trying to come to grips with a disaster in its backyard.
The crash that killed 266 on a flight from Kennedy Airport to the Dominican Republic took the life of at least one Jewish passenger, Ilan Vaserman, an Israeli businessman who had lived in Briarwood, Queens, for 18 years.
The crash also destroyed the Beach 131st Street brick house of Mark Shorr, a member of the Conservative synagogue in the seaside community.
And for 6-year-old Daniel Lefkowitz, it was Sept. 11 all over again.
Daniel and his mother, Sara, live just a block away from the crash site. A first-grader at the Yeshiva of Belle Harbor, Daniel dragged his mother from the house when he heard the plane barreling toward earth at 9:15 in the morning.
Stephen Lefkowitz worked in the World Trade Center office of the state Tax Department. Just last week, the Orthodox Congregation Ohab Zedek held a memorial service for him.
Vaserman, a father of two, traveled weekly to the Dominican Republic to visit his jewelry plant in Santo Domingo, according to a spokesperson at the Israeli Consulate in New York.
At least five people were still reportedly missing from this quiet, suburban neighborhood, where Jews and Irish and Italian Catholics live shoulder to shoulder. The area, according to communal officials, is home to six synagogues, two yeshivas, a mikveh and a new kosher deli. Many of those institutions, along with a kosher catering hall, played significant roles in the relief effort.
Upon hearing of the disaster, the executive vice president of the Jewish Community Relations Council, Michael Miller, left Washington, D.C., where he had been attending the United Jewish Communities' annual General Assembly.
"I'd flipped on the TV and realized that my place was in the city," he said.
Miller, a certified chaplain, offered his counseling services to grieving families of Flight 587 victims. After counseling one Dominican family for three hours, a Red Cross worker came by to request help for another bereaved family.
Miller's colleague "started asking questions in Spanish," but they soon realized "I was the one who could have the better ability to communicate," said Miller. This time, the foreign language was Hebrew. The family was Vaserman's sister-in-law and wife.
On the morning of Nov. 12, Beth El's community center on 135th Street served as a command headquarters for the police. Rabbi Allan Blaine of Beth El combed the blocks closest to the crash into the wee hours of the morning Nov. 13 in an attempt to locate members of his congregation.
Just a block from the site of the disaster, Yeshiva Mercaz Hatorah, an all-boys high school and post-high school, was open for classes Monday.
Aaron Malavsky, 16, was in his Mercaz dorm when he heard a thunderous roar.
"My parents were on a flight from Florida home to New Jersey, and it took me a few tries before my hand stopped shaking enough for me to dial their number right," he said. "Thankfully, they had gotten home safely."
Malavsky's schoolmate, Andrew Lock, 17, was standing on Beach 128th and Cronston "when I saw a plane and an engine, two separate pieces, spiraling down. I just started running, away from the direction they were going in ... I didn't see them crash, but I felt the heat from the fire."
Yeshiva Mercaz Hatorah, the home to 95 students ages 13 to 20, is situated in a small brick building next door to the community mikveh.
Shortly after the plane hit, teachers calmly instructed their students to walk away from the site toward the Marine Parkway Bridge.
Back at school, the boys said Tehillim, or Psalms, and mobilized food and drinks. They spent the afternoon distributing sodas, hot soup, corn, tuna fish sandwiches, pancakes and noodles to the hundreds of firefighters, police officers and rescue workers.
Rabbi Jacob Reiner of Ohab Zedek was at home on 139th Street when the crash occurred, but he went to the synagogue, which opened in the morning to evacuated families offering food, coffee and the use of telephones.
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