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Recollections of Bob and Ruth Reimer

We were at LSS for a year in 1983 and made no friends. Later, we visited Rabbi Riskin in Efrat. He sat down with us, shook his head and sagely said, To make friends you must be a friend. Get involved. Join committees. Join the Choir. Invite people for Shabbos lunch. We did and found a home.

Recollections of Herb Weiss

My connection to LSS goes back almost to the beginning. In the 1960s I lived on West 99th Street, and came down for Friday nights oneg Shabbats to the LSS, where a very young Rabbi Riskin was serving. In 1970 I moved to West 71st Street, and soon joined the shul. I was attracted by the crowds, enthusiasm and charismatic rabbi. The shul attracted huge crowds of singles from everywhere, not only New York. People would call the shul...Read more...

Recollections of Glenn Richter

On the morning after 200 Amsterdam Avenue was first put to use, slichot night 1969, I walked into the shul office. Mrs. Martha Cohn asked, “How did it go?”. I replied, “The sanctuary (which didn't even have pews yet) was overflowing – we just opened and we're already out of date!”

Lenore and I had moved into the Upper West Side in 1968 to be at LSS. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin had been a transformative influence on me as a teenager....Read more...

Recollections of Janine Sherr      

On Lincoln Square, Loss, and Love

In just a few days, Lincoln Square Synagogue, center of Modern Orthodox Jewry in Manhattan, will be taking up residence in its new location, only one block south of its present building.

It will have existed in its present location for over forty-two years.

And I, a relative newcomer to the community, having lived in New York only eight years, confess to feeling a bit saddened by the...Read more...

Recollections of Ruvan N. Cohen

I was in the Main Sanctuary the other evening. Alone.

I stood for a moment in the spot where Nathaniel used to Duchanfrom, flanked by me and Tobi Kahn, who taught me about המקום קדושת as weduchaned together in that spot for the five years since Nathaniel’s passing. I always thought of that as Nathaniel’s spot. I looked over to the amud, where both Nathaniel and Jonathan had their Brit Milah. I looked...Read more...

Recollections of Susan Ruttner

My first visit to LSS was for a wedding. The building was not yet completed, and there were white draperies hung to obscure the aron kodesh. The sanctuary was eventually completed and has lasted long after the marriage failed.

I moved to Manhattan in 1972, and for several years, I would come to LSS once a month, gravitating toward Rabbi Cohen’s minyan, where my friend Moe Harary often read the torah in his Syrian nusach. I wasn’t...Read more...

Recollections of Bernie Zweig

The LSS community continues its support of the brave soldiers in Israel though its “Adopt An IDF Unit” program. This year we raised $13,000 to help build Ha’bayit shel Benji (Benji’s House), a group home for chayalim bodedim, soldiers with no family living in Israel or from underprivileged Israeli families. We had aimed to raise $10,000 to outfit a computer room; the money we raised beyond our goal will purchase mezuzas for the...Read more...

Recollections of Shlomoh Sherman

When I first encountered Lincoln Square Synagogue, it was located in an apartment at 150 Amsterdam Avenue. That was in the spring of 1969.

My memory of the place is not really clear on the details but I do remember that it exuded an air of friendliness that I had not seen previously in any other Jewish place of worship. Of course, at the time I knew very little about Jewish religion or liturgical practice.

But I was made to...Read more...

Recollections of Dr. Bella Hass Weinberg

When my daughter and son-in-law were engaged, I suggested that they consider Lincoln Square Synagogue as a wedding hall. I recall a pleasant planning meeting with then-Executive Director Joe Blank and Cantor Sherwood Goffin. They found the velvet canopy for the Chuppah and showed us the dramatic entrance for the bride at the top of the stairs in the shul. The subsequent meeting with the caterer, Ira, was also very pleasant and...Read more...

Recollections of LSS' early days by Stanley Getzler, LSS president 1978 - 1981

On Friday night, January 27,1965, I attended my first service at Lincoln Square Synagogue. Fifteen or so of us gathered in a small room at 150 West End Avenue and listened as a young Rabbi Riskin spoke of the birth that morning of his first child, Batya. I noticed that there were two people who were so affected by the Rabbi's words that tears streamed down their cheeks. One was my wife, Phyllis, and after services I learned that the...Read more...

Tue, March 19 2024 9 Adar II 5784