Join Us To Rebuild Our Shul
An update on two situations that have become critical at
Congregation Ahavas Israel over the past several months.
• First, the old Synagogue building at 110 Noble street, adjacent to our
main building, must be taken down urgently. The building is a wood-framed
structure from 1894, and the wood frame has rotted almost completely. The
roof is leaning against our Synagogue and the apartment building on the far
side, thereby jeopardizing both buildings. It is a very dangerous situation. We
have worked closely with the Landmarks Preservation Commission (“LPC) to
explore our options for taking down a building within the Greenpoint historic
district. They encouraged us to find a way to keep up the façade of the
building, supporting it from behind, and take down the remainder. They hope
that sometime in the future, when we are able to rebuild that building, we will
restore the façade to its original design. We now have final approval from LPC
to demolish the building, while preserving the façade and restoring use of the
basement, which was used as the social hall for our community until a few
years ago when the building was condemned. We are looking at options for the
roof that will need to be constructed over the basement, and are currently
looking into options for a green roof, or a roof where we can plant to extend our
community garden.
• Second, the electrical situation in our main building at 108 Noble Street is
extremely dangerous. In the past several months, we had two small electrical
fires. Fortunately, both occurred while the building was occupied, and we were
very lucky that they were quickly contained. However, it is clear that we can
no longer wait to renovate the outdated electrical system or we risk losing our
precious building altogether. It has taken our architect some time to find an
electrician who is qualified to take on the challenge of the old wiring in our
building. We have just identified a firm, and they have made some repairs, but
we will need to take additional steps to bring the electrical systems up to date.
In addition to our renovation costs, we have ongoing costs including the Rabbi’s
salary, building insurance, programming costs, etc.
This comes at a time when despite the challenges of our physical structure, our
community is thriving. Several weeks ago, Rabbi Appelbaum graduated
members of the Hebrew I and Hebrew II classes he has been teaching. The
highlight was the Kabbalat Shabbat service, led by a Hebrew II graduate,
followed by a dinner at the Shul for more than 30 people. A few weeks before
that, we spent a beautiful Shavuot together, including a large festive dinner.
The Rabbi continues to hold weekly Hebrew and Talmud classes, and is also
leading the Shul in playing a key role in the greater community. Furthermore,
we are making great progress on our community garden, where volunteers
from within and outside of our community have worked hard on soil
remediation, and recently have completed the first planting of vegetables
together with volunteers from the Greenpoint Islamic Center and the
Greenpoint Reformed Church. The vegetables will be donated to the interfaith
soup kitchen held at the Greenpoint Reform Church.
To find out how YOU can help please write to
fundraising@greenpointshul.org
Thank you!
| Donations Donations for the reconstruction of our shul may be sent by mail to Congreation Ahavas Israel P.O. Box 32 Brooklyn, NY 11222 or electronically by clicking the button below |
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| Pictures from the old Reform Temple, next door to our shul |
| Stained Glass Window in our shul |