Sergey Kadinsky

Written Works

Struggling For Numbers: an elderly Jewish Community in Downtown Flushing

March 2008

This feature piece was submitted to a few local newspapers. It has not yet been published. Nevertheless, I consider this article to be a strong example of my writing abilities.

The storefronts of Kissena Boulevard are mostly Chinese and Korean, while nearby Main Street has a sizable Afghan presence. Sprinkled among them are a few delis, pizzerias, and Hindu temples. Forty years earlier, these streets had more Jewish storefronts. But even then, signs of a decline were evident, with younger families settling in the suburbs, and many of the elderly in the community retiring to Florida. The neighborhood’s last kosher deli closed in 1995. 

On a hill overlooking the neighborhood, the five apartment buildings of the Selfhelp Community Services were originally built for holocaust survivors. For the past decade, however, they have been open to applicants of all backgrounds. Every Saturday, Zakhar Vaysbukh, 87, struggles to get the Jewish residents to attend religious services. “It is difficult, we have few Jews left here,” he said. “Many of them do not want to attend, having lived secular lives.” Vaysbukh emigrated from Latvia in 1992, and has been residing in the Selfhelp apartments since 1996. “My apartment rent was becoming expensive, and we moved here for affordable housing,” he said. Raised in Moldova, Vaysbukh was given a Jewish education by his father Hersh, a school principal. However, after Soviet rule arrived in 1940, he lived a largely secular life, until arriving in America. With Zakhar as the sole exception, his entire family perished in the holocaust.   

Meeting every Friday night and Saturday morning, the religious services led by Vaysbukh are held in a community room on the first floor of the 18-story Martin Lande House. The congregation has no official name or denomination, and follows an informal Orthodoxy, where a temporary mechitza, or partition, separates men from women. Isaac Borenstein, 24, leads the morning prayers. A resident of the largely Jewish Kew Gardens Hills, he walks almost an hour every Saturday to reach the elderly congregation, and reads the weekly Torah portion. In order for the Torah to be read, and for certain prayers to be uttered, a minyan (quorum of ten men) is required, and often Borenstein makes the difference as the tenth man.  

The neighborhood’s only other Orthodox congregation is the Kissena Jewish Center, which has been without a rabbi for more than a decade. Led by Isaac Sasson, the synagogue also struggles to gather a minyan, relying largely on residents of the Selfhelp apartments and the Sanford Home for Adults. The synagogue supplements its income by leasing its upstairs classroom to a Chinese nursery school, and its parking lot on Sundays to congregants of a Chinese church located across the street. The struggling Jewish congregations do not see each other as competitors. "Those who go here (Selfhelp) are extremely frail, and cannot walk the four blocks to Bowne Street," Vaysbukh said.

The president of the Selfhelp congregation, Dr. Yuzef Murdakhayev is a retired biology professor, born in Uzbekistan. “Not only do we struggle for members,” he said, “our funding is also low.” With 85 as the average age of the congregants, all have a fixed income. “Our members contribute four to five thousand dollars, but our expenses approach $10,000,” he said. The most senior member of the congregation is Adele Lerner, 101. An accomplished artist, Lerner has been described in a recent New York Times article as the “Grandmother Moses of New York City.” 

The type of resident that Selfhelp was originally designed for is Erika Pomper. Like the organization’s founders, she is a German Jew, who left in 1937 for the United States. At the time, there were strict immigration quotas, but Pomper had an uncle in the country as a sponsor. She has been residing at Selfhelp since 1991. “There were more activities back then,” she says. “People were more interested. There were speakers and music.” Though the amount of Jewish programs has declined with the population, the Benjamin Rosenthal Senior Center, a former YM-YWHA has some Jewish movie and holiday programs, alongside senior-related lectures and multi-cultural events. 

To boost attendance, Vaysbukh and Murdakhayev have been giving out food packages, and pleading with their Jewish neighbors not to let the synagogue die. With fewer Jews being accepted as residents, hope remains dim. Sometimes, they are being heard. For the Purim holiday, the Bukharian Jewish Congress and Rabbi Eli Blokh of Rego Park provided mishoach manot, or holiday food packages, allowing the members to hold a festive meal following the megillah reading. “This minyan has a special place in my heart,” Rabbi Blokh said. “I will try to help them.”

Murdakhayev (l) and Vaysbukh lead the tiny congregation

The Selfhelp minyan with good attendance.

Note: the author is the grandson of Zakhar Vaysbukh, and also helps lead the weekly services. He is named after his brother, who perished in the holocaust.