Achiezer expands kosher respite room at Mount Sinai South Nassau

There was a chanukat habayit for an expanded Achiezer kosher respite room at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside on Monday.

“Everyone else can go to the cafeteria,” Rabbi Dr. Aaron E. Glatt remarked, but Jewish patients and their families have limited options. “This is a wonderful resource,” said Glatt, who is Chair of the Department of Medicine and Chief of Infectious Diseases, as well as associate rabbi at the Young Israel of Woodmere. “The hospital provides the room” while Achiezer stocks the food, he said. Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender, president of Five Towns-based Achiezer community resource center, thanked the family who dedicated the room in memory of Dr. Milton and Selma Gordon.

They “took a beautiful kindness to a higher level,” he said.

The same family is instrumental in renovating a Shabbos house near the hospital, Glatt added.

MSSN Senior VP Corporate Communications and Development Joe Calderone and VP Public Affairs and Development  Dana Sanneman welcomed visitors. Calderone thanked Glatt for working overtime to keep the public informed during the Covid pandemic.

Rabbis Glatt and Bender capped the event by affixing a mezuzah to the room’s entrance. MSSN staff, including some of the hospital’s frum employees, are pictured at the dedication.

MSSN is a 455-bed acute care, not-for-profit teaching hospital.