BronxRoots-L Archives

From: Mike <>
Subject: Hoping for a miracle...
Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 08:15:10 -0600

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Hoping for a miracle
By ARON HELLER
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, November 2nd, 2003

Congregation Hope of Israel, tucked away between the Bronx County
courthouse and Yankee
Stadium, is on its last legs.

It has not had regular services for the past three years. The rabbi of
30 years died in July. It has not
been able to form a minyan - the 10 Jewish men required by Orthodox
denominations to hold prayers.
For this year's high holy days, students from Yeshiva University had to
be hired to secure a minyan.

"We're on our last leg. Either people die, or they leave. No more Jews
are coming," said Sam Tenzer,
70, by far the youngest of the few remaining members. "This is our last
hurrah. We need a miracle."

The last Jewish temple in the lower Grand Concourse neighborhood, and
one of only three in the
South Bronx, the congregation once was the heart of a vibrant Jewish
community.

A half-century ago, the area was almost entirely Jewish, with hundreds
of synagogues from various
streams of Judaism dotting the streets.

Today, almost no Jews remain in the area, with statistics provided by
the local community board
showing the neighborhood's population is now 58% Hispanic, 36% black
and a mere 1.4% white.

"Unless something happens, the Jewish people in this area are going to
be gone - completely," said
Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx borough historian.

Ultan has been studying the Bronx for almost 50 years and says that
this phenomenon is a natural
process and part of the borough's historic function. "The Bronx is
generally a rung in the
socioeconomic ladder," he said. "People come from somewhere lower in
the ladder and move on to
somewhere higher."

However, this is hardly consoling to the few who have been left behind.

"We're the last of the Mohicans," said Verna Issenberg, 81, a part-time
volunteer who is mostly
responsible for keeping the synagogue operational. "And I'm not a young
chicken anymore. I'm an old
hen."

The soft-spoken former nurse arrived in the area in 1955, when the
second language in the South
Bronx was Yiddish, not Spanish.

Issenberg traces the start of the Jewish exodus from the South Bronx to
the late 1960s. Many Jews
moved to other parts of the Bronx, such as Riverdale and the newly
built Co-op City. Their children left
for other parts of New York and throughout the United States, and as
the community grew older, they
too began to flee, mostly to Florida.

Aside from two other very small temples, Hope of Israel is now the last
functioning synagogue in the
entire South Bronx.

Many have been demolished, the vacant lots used to build public
structures such as the Bronx
Museum of the Arts. Others have been renovated and transformed into
churches.

Congregation Hope of Israel now faces a similar fate. The beautifully
designed sanctuary is scarcely
used and non-Jews are now the primary beneficiaries of the community
Jewish Senior Center, which
serves kosher food for all.

"There are only a few of us left and each week it gets a little
smaller," Issenberg said with a sigh of the
declining Jewish population and congregation. "Someone passes away,
someone moves into a
nursing home. It's sad."

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• Hoping for a miracle... by Mike <>