Rabbi's Blog

Dear OZ family,

When I first came to OZ, Mrs. Bertha Trepp, who ended up working at OZ for over 40 years, showed me an old ledger book with the birthdays of OZ members, dated back to 1889. I had always considered it important to remember birthdays, and this was an excellent opportunity to connect to the long-time members of the shul. When I arrived in 1988, the shul still had the custom to allow anyone a public forum to air any grievance or issue before the shul. This was done in the late afternoon on Shemini Atzeret leading into Simchat Torah. It was held in the Social Hall and the room was packed. One of the last speakers was a former vice president of the shul who spent 5 minutes reviewing all his family’s historical credentials with the shul and all he had done for Ohab Zedek over the years. He mentioned the many venerable Rabbis and Chazzanim in the shul’s past and then went into a tirade about how he made life difficult for one of the previous rabbis (who was a personal friend of Harry S Truman, and spoke at his inaugural). His tirade continued at the temerity of a shul like Ohab Zedek to appoint a 26 year old, barely out of school (he might have said diapers). He continued to report that if this new rabbi would say something was white, he’d say it was black, and if the rabbi would say black, he’d say white.

He then looked at the audience, while I was cringing, and then said that all his feelings changed because this rabbi called him on his birthday. For that alone, he said he would be my friend. This man dedicated much of his time and resources to the shul, as well as a Hatzala ambulance and he helped set up the Eruv and much more. Over a period of a year I make about 3,000 birthday calls and many were returned yesterday as I reached the halfway mark to 120. Yesterday started with a funeral of a dear and long- time friend of OZ, Shelly Rosenbaum, and continued with the wedding of Alex and Anna Sternberg, so I was not available for much of the day to receive these calls. Please accept my profound gratitude for all your good wishes, and may we celebrate simchot, and good health, until 120.

Be well. Be healthy.  Be excellent   

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Congregation Ohab Zedek

118 West 95^th Street | New York, NY  10025-6604

Phone 212.749-5150, ext 200 | Fax 212.663-3635

E-mail ras@ozny.org

Website:  www.ozny.org