About

Hello, this is Dr. Neal Levy. Today is June 19th, 2022. I am dictating on voice recorder a brief history of the Sephardic Jewish Congregation of Queens, now located on 67th Drive off Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills. I have the merit to be, I believe, the last remaining, and oldest member of the congregation who was there at the founding of the congregation, even though I was a young child at the time. The synagogue was founded by basically three people: my grandfather, Mr. Nissim Levy, together with a good friend of his, Mr. Joe Michael, who was a successful businessman living in Forest Hills at the time, and a rabbi by the name of Rabbi Hai Yerushalmi, who was originally from Iraq. We were praying at the Queen's Jewish Center, which was a large Ashkenazi Orthodox synagogue at the time. There was no Sephardic synagogue in the Forest Hills/Rego Park area, perhaps not in Queens. They got together, decided that it was time to organize and found a Sephardic congregation for Sephardic members who want to pray in our custom – in our Nusach. So approximately around the year 1956, (when I was just 5 years old) they got together and decided to found the congregation. Initially, they rented a double storefront, (which is today is a different synagogue) located on 99th Street and 66th Avenue in Forest Hills. I remember very distinctly, it was two stores next to each other, owned by the Queen Jewish Center, and they rented it from the Queen's Jewish Center, dividing it in half for the women's section to be with a mechitza on the left side of the store, on the right store was the men's section.

The congregation began with a group of families, largely from the Balkans. My grandfather was from Chorlu in Turkey, near Istanbul. He was born around 1898, immigrated to the United States, New York, when he was a young teenager. The makeup of the congregation at the time were Jews from Turkey, (as was Mr. Joe Michael,) Greece, Egypt, some from Persia, and a few others from different Sephardic countries. The membership of the synagogue was always very heterogeneous. It was not the kind of a synagogue where all the members were of one community. For example, in Brooklyn, there are synagogues where the Jews are from mostly the Syrian community. Ours was very heterogeneous and always contained members from various cultures.

Just as an aside, this was actually not the first synagogue that my grandfather founded. Wherever he resided, he opened up a synagogue. So, when he lived in Brooklyn, opened up a synagogue there. Later moved to the Lower East Side of New York where he also founded a Sephardic synagogue. Later on, moved to Miami Beach, Florida, and opened up a synagogue there, where I lived with my grandparents as well in my first three and a half years.

We then moved to Forest Hills, where around 1956, founded the Sephardic synagogue that we currently pray in. The synagogue remained at that double storefront for several years, then moved to a second floor location above a diner on Queens Boulevard near 71st Avenue, and was there for several years. After that, we rented the Bet Midrash, a chapel, in the basement of the Young Israel of Forest Hills, and approximately around the year 1962, bought and built our synagogue on the property where our current synagogue exists at 67th Drive between Queens Boulevard and Booth Street.

The initial membership had changed with the influx of immigration from different countries over the years. So, for example, even though the original members were largely Turkish, Greek, Egyptian, Persian, etc., the immigration, for example, from the Israeli Bukharan community, added many members to the congregation. After that, I recall that the Persian community had a wave of immigration. We had many members who were from Persia, which later became known as Iran. Many new members from Morocco were then added to our congregation. After that, the Bukharim from Russia, the Soviet Union came, and as they did, the demographic makeup of Forest Hills/Rego Park area also radically changed. But our congregation remained a very solid synagogue where many different edot, people from different Sephardic cultures and communities enjoyed praying together. Since then, as people then spread out and moved to other areas of Queens and Long Island, many other Sephardic communities were started as an outgrowth of our congregation, where people who had been praying in our synagogue for many years then started other synagogues. I have actually visited other synagogues, other communities, and found congregants who were members of our synagogue for many years until they moved out of the area. For example, I was in Far Rockaway Queens, and I prayed there with a lovely community where many members had prayed with us throughout the years. So the Sephardic congregation actually served as a strong basis which led to the growth of many Sephardic communities throughout Queens and as well as Long Island and other areas.

I should also mention that it wasn't only Sephardim who enjoyed praying at our congregation; there were Ashkenazim who enjoyed the tefila and decided to either become members or pray regularly at our synagogue until this day. So, it has always remained a very heterogeneous synagogue, as far as membership and the makeup of the people who pray there regularly.

The current building that serves the synagogue actually went through several renovations after it was built. We were praying in the main synagogue, which did not have permanent pews, rather folding chairs, tables, etc. When the synagogue later went through its first major renovation, we prayed in the basement of the synagogue while the upper main synagogue was being built and renovated. The synagogue then actually grew in size. They expanded the synagogue toward the front of the building, twice actually. In addition to the main synagogue, built another smaller chapel and Bet Midrash, which also served as a classroom in the front of the synagogue with an office and a coat room. On the lower level, the kitchen was enlarged to accommodate

facilities to enable larger celebrations to be enjoyed, and the banquet hall/auditorium was redesigned. The adjoining parking lot was upgraded and repaved. The synagogue now erects a large community Succah at the rear of this parking lot during the week of Succot. So the synagogue actually went through several renovations as well as improvements to the structure of the synagogue, both inside and outside throughout the years.

I recall somewhere around the year 1971, I myself was very active in forming a youth group in the synagogue for high school age students, and served as the Youth Director of the congregation. This group became a chapter of the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, which was a major youth organization throughout the United States. We became the Sephardic chapter in New York, and were very successful in programming all kinds of spiritual, cultural and social events for high school youth. It lasted for several years, and actually in one of those years in the early seventies, the chapter won the distinction of being the “Chapter Of The Year” in the New York region of NCSY. Our members were able to relate with high school-age students from many other areas of New York, and went to conventions and Shabatonim, where they were able to increase their social sphere of other Jewish students, but also grow in their own Judaism via the varied workshops and classes.

Although initially, the synagogue became a center for prayer on Shabbat and the holidays (the Hagim), gradually the activity of the prayer services progressed from Shabbat and Hagim to weekday prayers as well, very gradually adding days when they would get a minyan, a quorum of Jews who would pray together, to the point of having full services with multiple minyanim throughout the weekday, Shabbat, Hag, Yom Kippur, and throughout the year. That has been the status of our full prayer schedule for many years up until the present. I recall that for many years on the High Holidays all three services were filled to capacity in the main sanctuary, downstairs in the auditorium, as well as in the small chapel, the Bet Midrash upstairs, and it was very hard actually to find available seats in many of the years.

A wonderful Judaica library was built in the Bet Medrash upstairs, The Nissim and Simha Levy Memorial Library, which was expanded to 3 large sections during the last 2 decades. This multi-language library enabled members to study various topics of their choice in Torah and Judaism. Many lectures and classes were added to the congregation throughout the week, and these groups availed themselves of the multitude of resources found in the library, from learning Hebrew to Talmud study.

In the early 1970’s the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel, Harav Ovadia Yosef, came to visit our community and spoke at the pulpit of the main sanctuary. Again, the synagogue was filled to capacity, not just from our membership, but from Sephardim throughout the community at large. It was a very big honor for our community to host Rav Ovadia Yosef, the Chief Rabbi, in our synagogue.

All in all, it has been wonderful to see the gradual, steady growth of a community from its inception with three members, grow to a vibrant center of Sephardic culture and religion throughout the decades to the point where even now in the Forest Hills/Rego Park area, there are many strong communities that have been established. Nevertheless, ours remains a bastion of strength in the Sephardic community at large, that has, like I said before, given rise to many other communities over the years.

For many years, on the holiday of Simhat Torah, I remember how our community was the central hub of activity where people from all over Queens would come and would partake in the festivities of dancing and singing with the Torah on Simhat Torah, as well as a large festive meal that was held in the auditorium of our synagogue. This took place for many years throughout all the activity of the Sephardic congregation. When the Lubavitcher Rebbe started sending teams of representatives from Chabad to Queens on the night of Simhat Torah, our synagogue was a central point where all of the volunteers, representatives from Chabad, would join, largely due to the efforts of the Rabbi of our synagogue, Rabbi Shalom Hecht. From there they spanned out to many other synagogues to assist in the Simhat Torah celebrations in other synagogues, which still goes on until this day. This has become a tradition for quite a long time, perhaps about 35 years now.

Today, the Sephardic Jewish congregation of Queens is a multifaceted community center, as well as synagogue, hosting prayer services throughout the week, 365 days a year, with services and classes from dawn until late at night, both for all the services of Shahrit, Minha and Arvit as well as all of the services of the Hagim. The congregation welcomes people from our membership and from others in the community at large to join together to also celebrate many of their Semahot, happy occasions, in our synagogue and banquet hall. Many Bar and bat mitzvah celebrations, Britot Milah, and even weddings took place in our synagogue, in addition to offering support for families who have suffered losses. Our congregation enjoys a reputation for which people turn back to our synagogue, even after they've left the community, to share their life events with the people in our community.

So, all in all, if anyone wants to study the growth of a synagogue or the growth of a community from the inception, from three members who started the synagogue, which, over the years has grown into this multifaceted community center, our synagogue is a model for study, both in terms of observing the growth, and participating in the growth of the synagogue, which is still an extremely active center in the Forest Hills/Rego Park area.