Anti-Jewish sentiments in Inwood

Flyers, meeting seek support against Bnot Shulamith move

By Michael Orbach

Issue of March 13, 2009 / 17 Adar 5769

A flyer recently found stapled to utility poles and placed inside grocery stores in Inwood may indicate souring relations between Jewish and non-Jewish residents of the less-heralded fifth town. The flyer announced a meeting intended to galvanize support against the planned purchase of a campus for Bnot Shulamith.

“District 15 schools have already been taken from our children and gone to Jewish organizations,” the flyer read. It concluded with a list of schools and public places that the flyer ominously warned would be taken over unless “we take action.”

“Let’s save one block at a time,” it said.

Word of the flyers came just before deadline for The Jewish Star’s March 6 issue — too late to be included.

Inwood has been the logical site of overflow from the neighboring Jewish communities of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway. Yeshiva Ketanah of Long Island opened a building there last year, and Bnot Shulamith hopes to do so as well, pending the conclusion of an unrelated, internal legal battle.

The meeting mentioned in the flyer took place on Feb. 26 at the Community Bible Church, diagonally across the street from Yeshiva Ketana. The church, a white clapboard building with an adjoining annex, was quiet on an early Sunday afternoon. At the same time the Yeshiva Ketana parking lot was filled with freshly washed minivans and SUVs, idling to pick up small children, while a white-haired man acting as a crossing guard waved the vehicles on.

Elaine, a secretary from Inwood who was walking by the church, was unaware of any controversy.

“I like what they did, putting up the Bible,” she observed, pointing to the Yeshiva Ketanah building. A large gold colored cross was hanging from a chain around her neck.

“You’re an Israel?” she asked uncertainly. “I had a great Israel doctor once.”

Inside the dining hall of the church, a long-haired man with a weathered face shrugged his shoulder when he was told about the meeting. He had heard about it but did not attend, he said.

“Live and let live is what I say,” he explained, before walking off. He declined to give his name.

Tim Broberg, the pastor of the church, was outraged that a reporter was interviewing on “the Lord’s day.”

“Would you be offended if I would interview your Jewish synagogue on your day?” Broberg demanded. He then asked the reporter to leave.

Last week Broberg told the Five Towns Jewish Times that his church was not affiliated with whatever meeting took place, although it was held on the premises. He said he would welcome a wave of Orthodox Jews to Inwood since, in his words, it would “broaden my mission field.”

Beth, who lives behind the church and was washing her car under an overcast sky, was nonchalant about the developments.

“If it’s not affecting my kids going to the Lawrence Public School District then I don’t care,” she said.