The New York Jewish Week ~ Connecting the World to Jewish News, Culture, Features, and Opinions ~ Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Dear Reader,
As the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy nears, we look at the emotional scars the storm continues to inflict on the Jewish community. Staff writer Stewart Ain reports this week on the community's efforts to help students who had their lives turned upside down and who have suffered at school, as well as others still struggling to get on their feet after the devastating storm.
Children, Others Still Suffering From Effects Of Sandy
As year anniversary nears, ‘it brings back memories’; trauma specialists called in for students.
Stewart Ain, Staff Writer
One year after Superstorm Sandy ravaged buildings and displaced families throughout the New York area, many children are unable to keep up in school, are finding it difficult to sleep and are experiencing eating disorders. Some have even turned to drugs.
“Here they were, trying to study for exams and living in a strange house — often while their parents stayed in another house,” said Joel Block, executive director of the JCC of the Greater Five Towns, whose own Merrick, L.I., home was flooded by Sandy with six feet of water.
“There was no one to help them with their schoolwork and everything about their world had been turned upside down,” he said. “They had a tough, tough time.”
Kathy Rosenthal, vice president of FEGS Family Services and Long Island Regional Operations, said the disruption proved so traumatic for some students that her organization has partnered with the JCC to “help them function better. Some of the students will need both tutoring and counseling.”
She said FEGS recently received several grants that will help fund these and other programs, including $119,000 from UJA-Federation of New York.
FEGS and the JCC will be collaborating, Rosenthal said, to provide a comprehensive array of services designed to address the academic and emotional needs of the children in the impacted area.
She said FEGS would be “bringing in specialists who will work with children with trauma.”
But children aren’t the only ones still suffering from the storm that hit with devastating force a year ago this week.
“Thousands of people are still having problems, either because they are living in situations that are unsafe, because they are still displaced or in various stages of rebuilding and recovery,” Rosenthal said. “We are still doing disaster case management.”
Rosenthal noted that last month the last of a total of $900,000 in emergency cash assistance was distributed. The money went to 500 families affected by the storm; they received up to $2,000 each.
Among the families receiving the cash assistance were the Safers of Cedarhurst: Sandy, her husband, Barry, and their adult daughter, who has medical needs; their son was away at the time of the storm.
The Safers, who had received phone alerts from Nassau County asking them to evacuate, remained in their home. Sandy Safer said they remained because their basement had remained dry in other storms and hurricanes during the 25 years they had lived there, and she was suffering at the time from a migraine headache.
But Safer said that as they watched the water in the street rise, “there was a huge boom, the sub pump stopped because the electricity went off, and water started coming in through the foundation. My husband was standing in the middle of the basement, water was pouring in like you saw in the movie, The Ten Commandments, and he started screaming, ‘Sandy, we’re going to die.’”
Exercise equipment, office material, file cabinets, the washer and dryer, and other items that filled the newly carpeted finished basement began to float.
“Barry was paralyzed by it,” Safer said. “I had to physically pull him and drag him up the stairs.”
The basement filled with water, which rose to just below the first floor.
They had no flood insurance and lived in a one-room apartment in Lawrence for seven weeks.
“We had to layout about $150,000,” Safer said. “And we borrowed an equal amount from family. We lost our two cars. It took about nine months to get all the repair work done.”
Rosenthal said special effort is now being given to helping families deal with the problem of mold in their homes either because it was never addressed or because the remediation effort did not do the job. And for many others, the job of rebuilding is far from over.
“We are aware of 60 families who are still not back in their homes,” said Richard Hagler, executive director of the Hebrew Academy of Long Island (HALB).
Elisheva Trachtenberg, a social worker and the Hurricane Sandy project coordinator at the Jewish Community Council of the Rockaway Peninsula, said her office is still seeing many homeless Jewish families and that many families are turning to the organization’s food pantry.
She said there had been a run on the food pantry right after the storm hit last Oct. 29. It then leveled off, but “in the last months attendance at our food pantry has increased tremendously.”
Interestingly, Trachtenberg said, her office has seen “more Jewish residents recently who were affected by the storm and had not sought help before.”
She said, “Many people were renters who had hoped the owners of their homes would make repairs. But they are now coming in asking for new housing because the owners have not made any repairs.”
Trachtenberg noted that an attorney from the New York Legal Assistant Group comes to her office weekly and is explaining to these renters that they have certain rights. The attorney is also still handling FEMA appeals and is working with people whose insurance company failed to cover all the repairs their homes required.
Her office receives funding for the food pantry from the American Red Cross. In addition, funding for other programs comes from UJA-Federation of New York and the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. The latter organization has a team of workmen who visit people’s homes to make Sandy-related repairs through a program called Metropair; there is a waiting list for this help.
Roberta Leiner, senior vice president of agency relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said it “could be months and years before communities deeply impacted will fully recover.”
“The issue of housing has been a major, critical issue that is very difficult to resolve,” she said. “It complicates people’s lives in multiple ways.”
She said that during the weeks and months after the storm when people were trying to reestablish themselves, to find shelter and deal with financial issues, issues of trauma didn’t surface.
“But now, a year after the event, we’re starting to see it,” Leiner said.
In response, Rabbi Toni Shy began work this week to provide spiritual and trauma counseling to adults affected by the storm.
Leiner said FEGS, UJA-Federation, the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, and the Jewish Theological Seminary all worked together to make that happen.
“This was a perfect opportunity to organize an endeavor that married the resources of traditional mental health as well as spiritual care,” she said.
In responding to the storm, UJA-Federation took $10 million from its endowment, created a relief fund that collected $6 million, and started the program, Connect to Recovery.
The $16 million has been allocated to 200 network agencies, synagogues and Jewish day schools, Leiner noted.
Next week, UJA-Federation leadership will be meeting to analyze the impact of what they have accomplished and determine the unmet needs that remain to be addressed.
Among those who have returned to their newly rebuilt homes is Edith Mazel, 77, a lifelong resident of Long Beach who has lived in the same home for 50 years. She said she evacuated to her daughter’s home in Oceanside ahead of the storm and later stayed with relatives while her home was repaired.
“It was a one-story house and everything was lost — all the furniture and appliances,” she said. “I needed everything. … It took seven months to redo the house.”
Mazel said she had no flood insurance and received the maximum of $38,000 from FEMA and $2,000 from FEGS.
“I wanted to come back,” she said. “I like it here. But if it happens again, I’m going to put a match to the house.”
Felicia Solomon said she returned to her Long Beach home at the end of March after it had been inundated with 18 inches of water.
“Mold remediation took weeks,” she said. “We had flood insurance. It cost more than $75,000 to make all the repairs and the insurance company covered the inside damage but not the outside.”
Solomon said she considers herself fortunate that she evacuated and took her cars with her because “all of my neighbors’ cars were destroyed.”
She said there was no question that she was going to rebuild and she said she saved and restored as much furniture as possible.
“I love my stuff and did not want to get rid of it,” Solomon said. “I lived in this neighborhood my whole life. I’m not expecting to have to do it again from another Sandy.”
She noted that in the aftermath of the storm, one of her sons, Zachary, 24, founded the Comfort Long Beach Initiative that coordinated recovery efforts, raised $150,000 and allocated that money to aid redevelopment projects in the area.
Hagler said two of HALB’s three campuses — Long Beach and Woodmere — sustained significant damage. The third in Hewlett Bay Park suffered primarily wind damage.
“Our Long Beach school had loads and loads of sand inside the building and in the boilers and the lighting — everything was damaged,” he said.
It took weeks before the first floor could be cleaned and air and structural checks made to ensure the building’s safety.
“We didn’t have it easy,” Hagler said. “The spirit of the students, their families and the faculty is what kept us going.”
He added that because the bookroom at the Woodmere school was destroyed, books that filled two dumpsters had to be discarded, as well as “30 to 50 bags of sforim [sacred books] that had to be buried.”
Meanwhile, at the West End Temple in Neponsit, the congregation’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Marjorie Slome, said the rebuilding of her synagogue’s sanctuary is still incomplete but that services are being held in the large, newly refurbished all-purpose room.
“We have one big workable room,” she said. “Classrooms in the nursery school are done, but the upstairs religious school rooms have to be primed. We also need a lot of masonry work and the windows need to be replaced. We had broken windows on the third floor because of the strong wind, and we’re getting estimates to repair the roof. We also need a new heating system.”
Insurance covered $1 million of the repairs, the rabbi observed.
In making the repairs, Rabbi Slome said, “we are thinking about how to make it stronger for the next storm. …We want to be done with all of the reconstruction in five or six months.”
Three couples whose adult children live in the metropolitan area sold their homes to be near their children, she said.
“I thought more would move. They closed Peninsula Hospital and now the closest hospital is in Far Rockaway, which is not a hop, skip and a jump.”
As the date of the super storm nears, Solomon said she and her neighbors are getting anxious.
“It brings back memories. It was a huge trauma; it really hit me. Every person I speak to – everyone – is anxious about the one-year anniversary. … If it happens again, we’re all out of here.”
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We report this week on Mayor Michael Bloomberg receiving the first-ever Genesis Prize, referred to as the "Jewish Nobel Prize." Talks are underway to have Bloomberg possibly meet with young adult Jews before picking up the prize in Israel in May.
Bloomberg, Now $1M Richer, Seen As Role Model To The Young
Officials of the Genesis Philanthropy Group, which this week named New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the first winner of its $1 million Genesis Prize, are hoping he will have more than just a ceremonial role in the coming year.
Wayne Firestone, president of the Genesis Prize Foundation, told The Jewish Week there have been discussions with Bloomberg and his staff about the possibility of his meeting with young adult Jews between January, after he has completed his 12 years as mayor, and next May, when he will be formally presented with the prize by Prime Minister Netanyahu at a ceremony in Israel. It is not yet clear where such a meeting, or meetings, would take place.
Some critics have questioned awarding the multi-billionaire with a $1 million prize. But Firestone said the cash award was never the key element to the contest, whose goal is to highlight a Jewish role model for younger generations of Jews around the world.
“We hope to reach young people, framed around the concept of tzedakah,” or charity, he said, and to inspire them around the themes of Jewish values, culture and heritage. He added that “this generation values people who can get things done and are problem solvers,” noting that Bloomberg is a prime example of such leaders.
“We want to take the concept of ‘Start-Up Nation’ and expand it to Start-Up People, in all fields, with Israel as a catalyst,” said Firestone, who was the top executive at Hillel International for a decade before joining the Genesis group.
(Bloomberg has said he was “flattered” by the award and that he intends to give the $1 million to an “unconventional” charity or project, probably one connected to the Middle East.)
Firestone said Bloomberg the businessman and politician is better known than Bloomberg the philanthropist, who has, with little fanfare, given vast sums to charity. He has supported Jewish causes in the past, including the dedication of a women and child center at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem in honor of his late mother, and Magen David Adom, the emergency medical service. But the bulk of his philanthropy has been to non-Jewish causes, most notably his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to which he has donated more than $1 billion.
Lord Jonathan Sacks, emeritus chief rabbi of Great Britain and a member of the selection committee, said Bloomberg “exemplifies the principle that by being true to our faith we can be a blessing to others regardless of their faith.” He quoted a letter written by the prophet Jeremiah (29: 7): “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
The Genesis Prize was established last year and is a partnership of the Genesis Philanthropy Group, Office of the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, and The Office of the Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel with offices in New York City and Tel Aviv.
More than 200 people from six continents were nominated for the prize. A committee headed by Yuli Edelstein, speaker of the Knesset, narrowed the names down to five finalists, and then a committee headed by Jewish Agency executive Natan Sharansky chose the winner.
The four finalists have not been made public.
JTA contributed to this story.
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Also this week, Israel correspondent Joshua Mitnick reports on the return of boom times for the country's high-tech industry. But a leading entrepreneur sounds a warning, saying the rise in venture capital may be a "bubble" that could burst. Political writer Adam Dickter reports on Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota's strategy to capture the Orthodox vote, Ted Merwin looks at the potential fallout from the closing of the last full-service kosher restaurant on the Lower East Side, and culture editor Sandee Brawarsky walks the sidewalks of New York with sociologist William Helmreich, whose new book takes him to nearly every neighborhood in the city looking for stories, many of them Jewish ones.
Heady Times For Israeli Tech
But sounding a warning, one leading entrepreneur says, ‘This feels like a bubble.’
Joshua Mitnick, Israel Correspondent
Tel Aviv — For several days last week, the world of high-tech seemed to take over Tel Aviv, as hundreds of foreign investors, executives and journalists descended on the city to mingle and size up Israel’s overflowing scene of start-ups and innovators.
The occasion was centered around DLD Tel Aviv, a conference on digital innovation. The master of ceremonies was Israeli angel investor and technology guru, Yossi Vardi. It was Vardi who helped originate the narrative of “start-up nation” 12 years before the publication of the seminal book, when his kids sold ICQ, an instant messaging software technology, to America Online.
Since then, the technology world has gone through several cycles of boom and bust, but the excitement surrounding Israeli technology seems to have risen to a fever pitch in the four months following Google’s acquisition in June of the Israeli mobile traffic-navigation app, Waze, for nearly $1 billion.
“The whole world was there [at DLD Tel Aviv]. From all the big companies — Yahoo and Google — as well as the international press,” said Hillel Fuld, a Israeli tech blogger and start-up mentor. “All in all, it was definitely a good week for innovation in Israel.
“In the venture capital world, there’s never been so much interest. I’m getting calls from global VC interested in investing here, and that’s exciting.”
A string of good news has followed Waze’s wake: an acquisition with a comparable price tag by IBM of Israeli cyber-security firm Trusteer; and Facebook’s announced that it would establish its first research-and-development center with the acquisition of its third Israeli company, Onavo. Amazon also announced that it was opening shop in Israel.
The May bankruptcy of Israel’s famed electric-car start up, Better Place (which managed to blow $850 million), seems all but forgotten.
The heady atmosphere last week was backed up with new data: according to the IVC Research Center, Israeli tech companies raised $660 million in the third quarter, the highest level since 2000, during the dot-com boom. For the first nine months of 2013, 474 companies raised $1.6 billion.
“There’s been a dramatic increase in the number of venture capital-backed start-ups in Israel,” said Ofer Sela, a partner in KPMG Somekh Chaikin, in a statement. “We see this trend continuing, leading to a record number of deals in 2013.”
The atmosphere at the conference was reminiscent of the dot-com boom: there were entrepreneurs touting of $1 billion ideas and some in “stealth” mode with ideas too good to divulge. Venture advisers bragged of seed investments in the pipeline. At a discussion on scouting Israeli start-ups, one panelist suggested Israel might be saturated with accelerators for entrepreneurs. SENSE?
“This feels like a bubble,” remarked Eran Yarkoni, who founded an optical device company in the 1990s. He suggested that Israel currently has a surplus of start-ups and that it’s impossible that all of them will be viable.
Amid that heady atmosphere, the Tel Aviv Municipality has been trying to leverage its newfound status as a haven for start-ups. The municipality says there are 1,200 technology companies based in the city, and it sponsored a competition to bring teams of entrepreneurs from around the world to a start-up competition in Tel Aviv.
The municipality has opened a workspace in a public library for entrepreneurs, and it has appealed to the government to grant special work visas for foreign non-Jewish entrepreneurs.
Despite all the success, one tech entrepreneur at the conference remarked in private that start-up nation was a misnomer because Israel’s technology ecosystem only accounts for 150,000 jobs out of a work force with several million people.
The Waze acquisition also exacerbated a long-running dilemma among Israeli entrepreneurs and venture capitalists: should start-ups founders sell successful businesses to the large multinationals, or should they push ahead with an initial public offering and try to build up a business on their own.
Tel Aviv’s technology ecosystem has been rated the best in the world outside of Silicon Valley, but many believe that for Israel’s tech industry to move to the next level, more investors and entrepreneurs need to avoid the urge for the “exit” and look to building up companies for the long term.
It used to be Israelis would wonder if they could ever build a Nokia, but after the telephone company faltered and hurt the Finland economy, Israeli venture capitalists are looking to repeat the success of Ramat Gan-based firewall company, Checkpoint Software.
“We want to build Checkpoints, a lot of them,” said Michael Eisenberg, a founding partner at the newly inaugurated Venture Capital Fund, Aleph. “We’ve arrived at the point of scale-up nation, not start-up nation.”
Israelis are concerned that if they don’t succeed in “scaling up” their tech start-ups, the country will remain a supermarket for multinationals that will eventually move much of the tech operations abroad.
However, in the last decade, nearly every major U.S. technology company has established some sort of research-and-development presence in Israel, giving Israeli start-ups access to capital and international markets that they didn’t have back in 2000.
Alongside the sense of accomplishment, however, is a rising feeling that the one of the building blocks of Israel’s technology prowess — Israel’s research universities — are in decline and are unable to attract the country’s best minds.
That concern was highlighted when two Israelis — Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt — were named as the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Both happen to be employed by U.S. universities and have been living abroad for decades.
Instead of elation, the fallout from the announcement spurred angst-filled discussions about the state of Israeli higher education. Just two days before the announcement of the Nobel, an Israeli public policy think tank, the Taub Center, released a report on the state of academic brain drain. (The report was the subject of a column last week by Jewish Week editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt.) The conclusion was that Israel suffers the highest level of academic attrition in the West.
Ayal Kimhi, a Hebrew University agriculture professor who works with the Taub Center, says the achievements of today are the fruits of the investments four decades ago. Since the ’70s, however, Israeli universities have been in decline because investment hasn’t kept up — limiting the potential for laboratories and staff.
“Budgets of the universities didn’t keep up with the number of students. It’s a budget issue,” Kimhi said. “This is our biggest asset here. We don’t have natural resources. The future of mankind is the brain. We have a comparative advantage.”
~~~
Lhota Sees Hope in Frum Vote
Badly trailing in polls, Republican candidate is a regular in Borough Park and Williamsburg.
Adam Dickter, Assistant Managing Editor
As polls suggest the lopsided mayoral race is all but over, with Democrat Bill de Blasio a mile ahead, Republican Joe Lhota seems to be working overtime to pick up support in neighborhoods where Jews have been most willing to cross party lines.
Recent Quinnipiac University polls have consistently shown Jews supporting Lhota more than Protestants or Catholics, which may be why he’s campaigning in the area’s most Orthodox neighborhoods. (Overall, de Blasio holds a lead of 68 percent to 24 percent.)
“You have my word that I’ll continue funding our [the city’s] social-service programs all throughout,” Lhota told voters in Flatbush, according to reports.
“I was always a supporter of vouchers [for private schools]. I can talk about vouchers until I am blue in the face.”
Three out of four Lhota appearances Sunday, one of the last three weekends before Election Day, were at Jewish venues: a community council breakfast in Riverdale, one in Borough Park and a meeting with the Flatbush Jewish Coalition.
“Joe Lhota has spent an enormous amount of time visiting the Jewish community and talking with them about important issues like public safety, helping small business, school choice and less governmental interference,” said a Lhota spokesman Tuesday.
In recent months Lhota has visited the grace of the Lubavitcher rebbe, asked rabbis for their blessing, gone sukkah-hopping, shook hands on street corners, visited Jewish shops and, on one recent occasion, ran into controversy when a zealous Borough Park rabbi asked female staff and reporters to wait outside his shul, and Lhota didn’t object.
Both de Blasio and Lhota were invited to the Jewish Community Council of Borough Park’s annual breakfast Sunday, presided over by a former City Council aide to de Blasio. Yeruchim Silber is now the JCC’s director.
But only Lhota showed up.
“It does appear he is trying to make inroads here and is spending a lot of time in this community,” Silber told The Jewish Week. “When a major party candidate comes, you hear him out.” Silber said de Blasio’s “12-year record” was well known among the attendees.
Lhota is also focusing a chunk of his advertising budget on the Orthodox. Fifty-nine percent of his online display advertising in the three months ending in mid-September has been placed on the haredi Yeshiva World News website, according to Adclarity, an Israeli startup company that monitors digital advertising.
“Joe Lhota is making a desperate attempt to garner as many votes as possible as he goes down to defeat in the upcoming general election for mayor,” Joel Schnur, a spokesman for AdClarity who is also a political consultant, said in a statement.
“One of his best chances, according to his handlers, is to pitch the Orthodox Jewish community to vote for him. The latest study of American Jewry — “A Portrait of Jewish America”— done by the Pew Research Center, indicates that 57 percent of Orthodox Jews are registered or lean Republican.”
Schnur noted in the statement that Lhota likely sees Orthodox Jews open to his message that de Blasio would bring back an era of high crime in the city, a point his campaign makes in a controversial TV ad that includes images from the 1991 Crown Heights riots. De Blasio has denounced the ad as divisive, and a tactic out of the national Republican playbook.
Lhota’s strategy is reminiscent of the 2008 presidential campaign of his ex-boss, Rudy Giuliani. Desperately needing to gain ground in other early-voting states, Giuliani instead focused his campaign on friendly turf in Florida, hoping a big enough win there would give him momentum for other victories. (He placed third there.)
According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, released Monday, 38 percent of Jewish likely voters support Lhota, slightly more than the 34 percent of Catholics and far more than the 16 percent of Protestants. De Blasio has 57 percent of the Jewish vote, the same as his Catholic figure but less than the 76 percent of Protestants.
A Marist College poll that includes voters who are undecided but leaning toward a candidate, however, showed fewer Jews backing Lhota than Catholics, 26 to 31 percent. Protestants in that poll supporting Lhota amounted to 14 percent.
De Blasio has kept his public appearances to a minimum while he focuses on fundraising — an event with Hillary Clinton netted a reported $1 million Monday — and debate preparation. His campaign spokesman did not respond to an inquiry Tuesday about whether any upcoming appearances were planned at a Jewish venue.
“It’s no surprise Bill de Blasio is absent from the [Jewish] community because showing up would require him to answer questions on his role in the Dinkins administration during the Crown Heights riots, his record raising taxes and fees and his plans that will handcuff the NYPD and make us less safe,” said the Lhota spokesman.
De Blasio supporters say his long history of ties with Jewish leaders forged while managing Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, during two terms in the City Council and as public advocate make election year visits unnecessary.
“Bill de Blasio represented Borough Park; he practically knows every stone, every parking meter,” said chasidic political consultant Ezra Friedlander. “I would hope the people decide to vote for someone based on how they perceive their ability to function in that office, not because … they weren’t at every melave malka.”
A Sunday feature in the Daily News noted that de Blasio, as an aide to Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch, had a “front row seat” during the Crown Heights riots and noted that the state report commissioned by then-Gov. Mario Cuomo on the unrest faulted Lynch’s performance during the crisis.
The topic came up on Monday when the frontrunner appeared at an event with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and the News reporter, Greg Smith, pressed him about his role.
“I was in City Hall working on the staff,” said a visibly annoyed de Blasio, according to the New York Observer’s Politicker blog. “I did receive calls from concerned community leaders around the city and that’s all … I was not on the site. I came away with very strong views but I did not participate directly. I just need to be crystal clear about that.”
Lhota on Sunday sought to capitalize on the new interest in Crown Heights, telling the Politicker, “Bill de Blasio was given information by people in the community. They’ve all testified to the fact. It stayed there. It stayed there with Bill de Blasio.”
Jewish leaders contacted by The Jewish Week Monday and Tuesday did not recall hearing de Blasio’s name or seeing him during that time.
“A tall guy like that would have stuck out in my mind,” said Rabbi Shea Hecht, a politically connected Crown Heights rabbi who recalls attending a meeting at a local public school with Lynch at the time. “I don’t remember hearing his name [in connection with the riots] until now, but I can’t be sure.”
David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, who was in Israel at the time but in regular phone contact with city leaders, said “we dealt mostly with Herbie Block [Mayor David Dinkins’ Jewish liaison] and [Deputy Mayor] Milton Mollen.”
Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, chairman of the Crown Heights community board, also said he didn’t recall de Blasio having a role. “Lynch was the point guy, so whoever worked with him was doing what [Lynch] told him to do,” said the rabbi. “They were filtering the calls at City Hall.”
In a July interview with The Jewish Week, de Blasio criticized his bosses’ response to the violence, saying: “It was a perfect storm and was very painful time and a very difficult time. I think any of us who could do it over again would say the police response should have been stronger, earlier, more resolute.”
Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who is backing de Blasio but hasn’t yet publicly campaigned with him, said he had no concerns about a return to high crime, as Lhota has been warning, if the Democrat wins because it would doom his re-election bid.
He said Lhota’s people had asked for a meeting during a recent visit to Borough Park but Hikind declined, saying it could send a message of ambiguity about his choice.
Hikind, who is the city’s most prominent Orthodox politician, acknowledged that Lhota could gain support among “more conservative Jews in certain pockets.” And he said there are issues on which he strongly disagrees with de Blasio.
“But the bottom line is, would his door be open? Will he be someone who listens seriously to the concerns of the Jewish community, and there is no doubt in mind” that he would.
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Noah’s Ark Deli Sails: What Does It Mean For LES?
Neighborhood leaders weigh in on closing of last full-service kosher restaurant on Lower East Side.
Ted Merwin, Special To The Jewish Week
Shmulke Bernstein’s. Ratner’s. Unterman’s Roumanian. Pollack’s. Gluckstern’s. The Garden Cafeteria. The Crown Delicatessen.
Time was, the Lower East Side was filled with kosher eateries of every description. Not any more — it’s now a challenge to find kosher food in the historic immigrant Jewish enclave. Does the recent closing of Noah’s Ark Deli, the last full-service kosher restaurant on the Lower East Side, mark the end of an era on the Lower East Side?
Laurie Tobias Cohen, the executive director of the Lower East Side Conservancy, and herself an observant Jew, thinks so.
Even as her organization organizes tours of sacred Jewish sites in the neighborhood, she has few kosher places to steer groups for lunch. She sees kosher dining options blossoming on the Upper West Side, in Riverdale and in Teaneck, N.J. — but not on the Lower East Side, where she said an older, more traditionally Orthodox community resides.
“Notions of eating out on a daily basis are very American,” Cohen pointed out. “People down here don’t have it in their Jewish DNA to spend money in restaurants.”
While she and her staff did send tour groups to Noah’s Ark, which opened on Grand Street in 2003, they found the prices there more expensive than a boxed lunch from a Midtown kosher deli like Ben’s, located near Penn Station. Most tourists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, don’t keep kosher anyway, she noted, and tend to end up Katz’s, the iconic non-kosher deli on Houston Street.
Cohen also pointed out that Noah’s Ark, which rented space from the Seward Park Cooperative, was “not in a particularly touristic part of the neighborhood — unlike the old Second Avenue Deli, which had an “ideal location in the East Village with its historic, hipster vibe.”
Yet Noah’s Ark had some notoriety of its own; it was a hangout of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who dined there in 2005 with Michael Bloomberg to discuss the mayor’s plans for a football stadium on the West Side.
Rabbi Josh Yuter, the spiritual leader of the Stanton Street Shul, located four blocks north of Grand, says the loss of a kosher restaurant is significant. “The cultural perception of a thriving Jewish community is based on the number of kosher restaurants that it supports,” he said.
Rabbi Yuter echoed Cohen in noting that many Orthodox residents of the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, where a one-bedroom apartment can cost upwards of $500,000, are aging and not wealthy; they either inherited their apartments or bought them decades ago, before the co-ops privatized and starting selling units on the open market.
Further, the lack of an eruv — a symbolic boundary that permits carrying objects and pushing baby carriages outside on the Sabbath — discourages young Orthodox Jewish families from moving in.
There are other arguably kosher restaurants in the area, like the organic vegan restaurant Caravan of Dreams and the pan-Asian vegan café Wild Ginger, but they are not supervised by any nationally recognized kosher certification agency. (Noah’s Ark was under the supervision of Star-K in Baltimore.) Without Noah’s Ark, Rabbi Yuter said the neighborhood no longer has “authentically Jewish cuisine that was authentically kosher too.”
Nevertheless, according to Rabbi Yuter’s colleague, Zvi David Romm, the rabbi of the Bialystoker Synagogue, located around the corner from the site of the deli, the demise of Noah’s Ark is about the “closing of a particular establishment, not about the closing up of life on the Lower East Side.”
Rabbi Romm estimated that about 300 kosher-observant families remain in the neighborhood, and noted that many kosher options remain in the neighborhood — everything from bagels and bialys to pickles and pizza. The Lower East Side, he concluded, “remains a mecca for kosher and non-kosher tourists of all types.”
So why did Noah’s Ark pull up stakes?
A resident of the Seward Park co-op, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the restaurant had been declining for years — unlike the deli’s flagship location, owned by the same couple, Noam and Shelly Sokolow, in Teaneck. “It was no secret that the place was not full,” he said, “and that the prices were rising and the quality going down. The owners were trying to save a sinking ship.”
While the deli had a good deal on rent — $5,500 a month — it could not sell enough sandwiches, even at close to $20 apiece, to keep the place afloat. Efforts by the co-op to find another business to take over the space were unavailing. (The Sokolows did not respond to calls for comment on this article.) And thus Noah’s Ark sank along with the Stage, Adelman’s (in Brooklyn) and the other delis that have closed in New York — and across the country — in the last year.
While it has been said that the co-op board owes it to the neighborhood to find another kosher restaurant to take the place of Noah’s Ark, could a new kosher place survive?
Jeffrey Gurock, a professor at Yeshiva University and the leading expert on the history of Orthodox Jews in America, doubts it.
“The Orthodox Jewish clientele used to go down to the Lower East Side for the sights, sounds and smells of the old neighborhood,” he said. “Now they can have it right in their own backyard — wherever they live in New York.”
editor@jewishweek.org
editor@jewishweek.org
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A New Walker In The City
Over four years (and nine pairs of shoes), CUNY sociologist found stories on nearly every block of NYC. Many of them are Jewish.
Sandee Brawarsky, Jewish Week Book Critic
The great urban activist Jane Jacobs wrote about the sidewalk ballet of New York’s streets, how the streetscapes of this great city are backdrops to an unscripted dance between neighbors and passersby. These improvisations unfold on every block, every day, never to be repeated.
Over four years, sociologist William Helmreich meticulously choreographed his own distinctive movements in every borough, walking at a steady stride, slow enough to take in architectural details, signage, street level shops and institutions, makeshift memorials, landscaping, parking patterns, graffiti and people. From Cambria Heights, Queens to Morningside Heights, Manhattan, from Bergen Beach, Brooklyn to Mariner’s Harbor, Staten Island and Throg’s Neck in the Bronx, the CUNY professor has pounded the pavement of every city block. Recognizing that the best way to see and understand the city is on foot, he walked about 30 miles a week, on nights and days, weekends, summer and winter.
It took him nine pairs of shoes to complete the research for his new book, “The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6000 Miles in the City” (Princeton University Press). His book is an uncommon portrait of the city in 2013: a look at its diverse neighborhoods and the urban issues — like immigration, community, use of public space and gentrification — that run though all of them. The book is not a guidebook, but a very accessible sociological study, full of color and anecdote. In this work, he’s more ethnographer than statistician.
To mark the publication of the book, Helmreich and I set out last week on a tour of unknown New York. We met at the 167th Street Station in the South Bronx, and traveled by car and on foot, covering about 20 miles. On a perfect autumn day with clear blue skies, every corner of the city was shimmering in the sunlight, even those blocks where Helmreich advised caution.
Helmreich has been walking the city since he was a 7-year-old. He and his father would play a game of their own design called “Last Stop.” On weekends, they’d take the subway — riding a different line each week — to the last stop and get out and explore before returning to their Upper West Side home. After they ran through the last stops, they turned to second-to-last stops, and so on, for about five years. The book is dedicated to his late father, who died a few years ago at 102. Until his 80s, the senior Helmreich was walking seven miles a day.
Our tour follows the highlights of some of his own well-worn pathways. Helmreich has a near photographic memory, so he recalls every building and curve in the road. That he once drove a yellow cab contributes to his sharp sense of direction.
He’s a man who’s yet to meet a stranger. As he’s walking, he looks people in the eye and greets them. When he spots someone he wants to talk with, he simply “walks into the conversation,” either making a comment or asking a question. Our first stop is Junior High School 22, on East 167th Street and College Avenue. Here, the lone Jewish staff person is Tuvia Tatik, a Lubavitch guy who serves as dean, in charge of discipline. Helmreich ran into him on the street outside of the school, quite surprised to find a chassid in this African, African-American and Latin-American neighborhood.
“I don’t see myself as a police officer,” the soft-spoken dean says. “[The students] need some one willing to listen to them and understand them.” He says that the kids and parents no longer notice the beard and tzitzit, and the staff is accommodating of his Shabbat schedule. For him, working in the South Bronx (and getting up at 4:45 in the morning to get there from Crown Heights) is part of his God-given purpose, to help elevate the world. So our tour is off on a spiritual note, even in this once-Jewish neighborhood, where just about all of the Jews are gone. Nearby, we pass the once-grand Temple Adath Israel, a congregation going back to the 1880s where Richard Tucker was the cantor; its neoclassical building now houses Grand Concourse Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Helmreich thinks the Bronx is ripe in many neighborhoods for the kind of gentrification that has altered the face of Brooklyn — and there may already be signs of it, like new housing stock, an occasional gallery or Internet café. A block of Morris Avenue, with a row of well-kept townhouses with bay windows looks like Back Bay Boston or Brownstone Brooklyn. We turn a corner on Grand Avenue to pull up in front of a brick house that is Eclesia Catolica Cristiana, a church whose outdoor announcement board lists weekly exorcisms. Helmreich explains that the minister, who died seven years ago, was considered a saint. We get lucky when a young man on the street responds to Helmreich’s greeting, and it turns out that he is the minister’s grandson, who confirms that indeed Father Rodriguez was a good soul. But this young college graduate was too scared to attend the exorcisms.
While we had intended to spend little time in the Bronx, Helmreich is an enthusiast of this borough. We visit a little-known and beautiful waterfall off of Boston Road and East 180th Street and drive past some suburban-looking houses on Charlotte Street built after Jimmy Carter’s visit in 1977.
Our one quick stop in Manhattan is a puzzler: In Harlem, at the corner of Madison Avenue between 129th and 130th streets, the Church of All Saints is an ornate gothic building designed by James Renwick, who also designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Large carvings of the Star of David adorn three gables at the top of the building. One of the ministers told Helmreich that a Jewish man who owned the property was not comfortable selling it to a church, and insisted that the church have some marking to show that this was once a Jewish-owned property. To verify this, Helmreich tried checking city building and real estate records, but couldn’t find any. Perhaps it’s an urban legend, but no better story was offered.
Helmreich, who has been teaching a graduate course on New York City for 40 years, whether at City College or the Graduate Center, interviewed former mayors Ed Koch, David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani, along with Michael Bloomberg. A resident of Great Neck, L.I., he is the author of 13 previous books. About half have Jewish themes; while this new book is a general work, there’s much of Jewish urban interest.
Back in the car, we make our way to Brooklyn, first to the industrial area of East Williamsburg where the large walls of buildings make for great canvas for muralists, at the intersection of Messerole and Waterbury Street, and then to Bushwick, where there’s an explosion of color at the corner of Troutman Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, made by a group called the Bushwick Collective. In the south Bronx, the murals are less professional but still beautiful. Some of those are gang-related or memorials, and some are painted to prevent graffiti. On subsequent visits, they may be gone.
On the way to the chasidic section of Williamsburg, we pass Chabad of Bushwick, and then a kosher butcher with live chickens and an Internet and business store also labeled kosher, not for the food (there is none), but for the filters on what can be viewed. We have lunch at the glatt kosher Gottlieb’s Deli, whose menu and decor are testament that some things do stay the same.
We walk along Flushing Avenue, the border between the chasidic community of South Williamsburg and the mostly black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Across from new apartment houses that still have sukkahs on their terraces, the Marcy Houses are solid brick buildings. Along the curved walkways, impromptu gardens and displays show someone’s effort to beautify the place. Helmreich notices everything.
“Every block counts,” he says. “New York is the greatest outdoor museum.”
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Enjoy the issue,
Rob Goldblum
Managing Editor
PS: Our website is there for you whenever you want it, for the latest news and exclusive videos, blogs, opinion and advice columns, and more.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/
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Between the Lines - Gary Rosenblatt
At The Conversation, It's Jew vs. Jew In Reverse
One of the unintended highlights of this year’s Conversation — the annual Jewish Week-sponsored two-day retreat for a wide variety of Jewish leaders and future leaders from around the country — was the emerging friendship between two participants with seemingly little in common besides their names. Actually, their name.
You see, the small team that helps put together the list of about 55 participants each year had intended to invite David Ingber, the dynamic and popular rabbi of Romemu, a growing congregation on the Upper West Side. When his positive response arrived, though, several months ago, we were surprised to see that his registration form noted that besides living on the Upper West Side and being very interested in discussing why fewer Jews of his age were affiliating with Jewish life, he listed his profession as comedy and making videos of Major League baseball players.
We soon realized we had invited “the wrong” David Ingber.
A few days later, the “right” David Inbger, the rabbi, also registered to attend.
What to do? Before our team had a chance to discuss the situation, the “baseball David Ingber” e-mailed us to say that he had checked our website’s list of participants and realized we’d meant to invite the “Romemu David Ingber.” He said he would not be insulted if we told him he was disinvited, no hard feelings.
I couldn’t help thinking of the parallels to the famous Talmudic story of perhaps the most tragic case of mistaken identity in Jewish history. According to the Midrash, a wealthy man in first-century Jerusalem was making a party and asked his servant to invite the man’s friend, named Kamsa. By accident, the servant invited a man named Bar Kamsa, an enemy of the host, who showed up at the party and was asked by the host to leave.
Bar Kamsa, hoping to avoid public humiliation, offered to make peace with the host, and even offered to pay for the party if he was allowed to stay. But he was rebuffed and forced to leave. Angered over the incident, particularly over the fact that the rabbis in attendance did not come to his aid, he vowed revenge. He went to the Romans and told them the Jews were planning a revolt, which resulted in the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Holy Temple.
A spectacularly disastrous example of Jew vs. Jew animosity.
For reasons far less dramatic — namely our planning team thought “the baseball David Ingber,” who is 30, and had written enthusiastically about his desire to attend, had much to contribute to the Conversation discussions — we re-invited him. We told him that while it was true he was invited by mistake, we definitely wanted him to come.
In the end, not only was he a particularly thoughtful and charming participant, but he and his namesake spent time together and played off each other’s distinctive talents. (At one point “the Romemu David Ingber” referred to the other David Ingber as “my rabbi.”) And after their story was made known to the other participants, the two were often seen posing together for photos.
It was a kind of Jew vs. Jew story in reverse, and one that underscored the unique quality of The Conversation that makes it so appealing to its participants — a safe space for reflective, off-the-record discussion with fellow Jews, most of whom they would otherwise never meet or get to know.
Sitting in a large circle last Tuesday at the end of the 48-hour retreat, I looked around the room at the other participants and marveled at how — strangers for the most part two days ago — we had bonded as a group, despite our diverse backgrounds. And we had been able to go deep in our discussions around the broad theme of “Being Jewish In America In the 21st Century.”
As one of the group observed, how refreshing that “we just spent two days questioning answers rather than answering questions.”
Among us were Jewish lay and professional leaders, rabbis from each of the streams, business people, journalists, social media experts, professors, gay activists and a best-selling author. We represented all ages, religious and political beliefs, and parts of the country. What we had in common was a willingness to hear other points of view and a keen interest in the Jewish enterprise, however we defined it, as well as a commitment to sustaining it at a time when its survival in this country is seen as threatened.
Now in its ninth year and set at the Pearlstone Conference Center on a lovely farm near Baltimore, The Conversation features no plenaries, panels or outside speakers. In fact there is no program. The participants themselves are the program. With Open Space facilitation, they are invited to propose topics for discussion and whoever wants to join them does so. The largest discussion at this year’s conference, held Oct. 13-15, had about 30 people taking part; others had as few as three or four.
Not surprisingly, much of the talk was dominated by reactions to the recent Pew report on American Jewish identity. (It was the topic of the session with 30 people.) And proof of the diversity among the participants was that some felt the report was a virtual death knell for the community while others found the results heartening.
Much, it seems, depends on whether you see your Jewish identity in religious or cultural terms. Those among the former pointed to the worrisome statistics about intermarriage and the growing numbers of Jews with “no religion,” while those among the latter took comfort in the overwhelming number of respondents who expressed pride in being Jewish and saw the increase in interfaith marriages as expanding the number of Jewish allies in the U.S.
(Noting the varied points of view, one participant referred to the Pew report as “demographic manna,” containing data that can affirm and nourish whatever opinions one has about the condition of American Jewry.)
There was surprisingly little talk of Israel this year. A number of discussions revolved around what is seen as broken in the U.S. Jewish community and in need of repair — synagogues, Hebrew schools, Jewish organizations. But as the participants became more comfortable with the process, and each other, the discussions turned more personal: What inspires you Jewishly? What is your vision of the Jewish future? What can be done for aging single women who want to have children? How does one maintain one’s Jewish identity in an overwhelmingly Christian environment in the Mississippi Delta?
Experience with The Conversation has shown that long after the specifics of the discussions fade from memory, the feeling of being connected to others with whom one has differing views stays on, and is still appreciated — especially at a time when much of our society, from Washington on down, has lost the art of civil discourse.
For me, I will cherish the words of gratitude from participants for the “gift” of The Conversation, and smile whenever I see a photo of the two David Ingbers, smiling, arm in arm and holding up their name tags.
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Food and Wine
You Ever Have 'Kasha Congri?'
Steve Lipman - Staff Writer
The cuisine and the chefs in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district last week were a fusion of two cultures.
For four days, two haute cuisine chefs, chums from the Food Network, Eric Greenspan, in dark T-short, and Roberto Treviño, combined their culinary skills at what they know best: Jewish cooking and Latin cooking, respectively.
The chefs, a publicity release stated, sought to “challenge conventional definitions of both cuisines with innovative dishes evolved from familial roots.”
At a pop-up eatery dubbed “El Ñosh” at the Malt n Mash restaurant, and at a separate food truck, they launched signature Latin-Fusion dishes like Pastrami and Dill Pickle Croquetas with yellow mustard, Matzoh Ball “Albondiga” Soup with Beef Consommé & Chipotle Braised Celery, Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese “Quesadillas” with Red Onion & Cucumber Salad.
The entrees were equally creative: Beef Brisket with Horseradish “Pozole,” Beets & Radish, Kasha “CongrÔ with Romesco, “Calabaza,” “Cotija” Cheese & Zatar. Desserts? Poppy & Sesame Seed Crusted Churros with Gelt Melt and Guava & Cream Cheese Blintzes.
Greenspan is based at The Foundry on Melrose, in Los Angeles; Treviño is owner and chef of three restaurants in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
El Ñosh, sponsored by Buick, Greenspan’s Foundation Hospitality Group, and the Lower East Side’s Hotel on Rivington, has already made an appearance in multi-ethnic Miami, and in San Juan.
An El Ñosh food truck popped up around Manhattan over the weekend. Plans are afoot to bring an El Ñosh food truck to Los Angeles later this year.
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Travel - Monaco
A view of Monaco-Ville. Photos courtesy of Monaco Press Center
Jewish (And More) On The Riviera
Hilary Larson - Travel Writer
Of all the tiny European mini-states, Monaco is nearly the tiniest (only Vatican City is smaller), arguably the most legendary and certainly the most fabulous.
With less than a square mile wedged into the French Riviera and one of the most lopsided wealth-to-size ratios anywhere, Monaco feels like Palm Beach on the Mediterranean. But as mirage-like as it may seem, Monaco is in fact a real place, a glitzy, manicured pastel paradise with a complex history and a compelling cultural mélange.
By day, as you stroll amid throngs of tourists up steep palace walls and peer into haute couture shops, it can feel like a theme park of affluence and luxury. By night, in the soft glow of the hotel gardens, lights twinkling along the yacht-filled harbor, Monaco feels like a glamorous movie.
It can be hard to distinguish between tourists and locals: everybody in Monaco, it seems, is from somewhere else. The Grimaldi monarchy has ruled since 1297, but most of the other people you find wandering around Monte Carlo and the rocky cliff-top quartier of Monaco-Ville claim roots in France, Italy, Britain, Germany, North Africa or Switzerland.
Many of the newer families are Jewish. Like the city-state itself, the Monaco Jewish community is a modern, cosmopolitan hybrid; current estimates put the population at about 1,000, though since almost everyone is from somewhere else and a good percentage are peripatetic retirees, an accurate figure is hard to pin down.
British pensioners, North African Sephardim and French Ashkenazim are all well represented in the Association Culturelle Israelite de Monaco, a synagogue housed in a pink downtown villa, as well as the nearby Jewish Cultural Center. The community coalesced in the postwar years and sustains an active schedule of worship, classes, children’s education and social events. Kosher meats and baked goods are also available in the principality, with the synagogue a good resource.
Like everybody else, Jewish Monegasques (yes, that’s what Monaco residents are called) are drawn by Monaco’s siren charms: gorgeous weather, stunning Mediterranean scenery, no individual income tax, and plenty of banks, not necessarily in that order. Monaco may be small, but its high-rise pink cityscape is densely populated with the 1 percent and all they might ever need to feel at home.
You’ll find the palace that housed Prince Grace and her scandal-prone royal brood; the iconic Monte Carlo Casino and Opera House, right out of a James Bond fantasy; a very lovely aquarium — complete with shark tank — inside the Oceanographic Museum, worth the trip for its castle-on-a-cliff location; and multiple Michelin-starred restaurants that feature the best of French and Italian cuisine, all in a pine-scented Mediterranean setting.
In the country with the world’s highest per capita income, it comes as no surprise that Monaco isn’t cheap for visitors. The hotels themselves are practically attractions in and of themselves; each one seems to outdo the next with lavish fountains, swimming pool “collections” and royal-palace-style architecture.
But beyond the high-priced façade, Monaco can be a surprisingly affordable place. Staggering sums of money change hands at the fabled Monte Carlo Casino, but the stunning harbor panoramas from its landscaped gardens are free.
Down the cliff, but still in Monte Carlo, the chic beachside neighborhood of Larvotto has plenty of modestly priced pizzerias; Italian pasta joints of varying quality are sprinkled throughout the city, and charge about what you’d expect in any European city. Entrance fees for the top sights are also reasonable, so many make Monaco a day trip from Nice, Cannes or the Italian Riviera — all of which feel decidedly middle class after 12 hours amid the Monegasques.
Many are drawn here by the romantic story of Grace Kelly, the American movie star who married a Grimaldi prince (and whose children’s marital, and extramarital, antics kept a generation of paparazzi in business). I was fascinated to learn that the quintessentially WASPy Princess Grace will have half-Jewish progeny: her granddaughter, the stunning Charlotte Casiraghi, is expecting with her fiancé, Moroccan-Jewish actor Gad Elmaleh.
Today, visitors can tour the royal palace where Grace once reigned, now the domain of her son, Prince Albert II. From the 13th-century fortress wall to the Brueghel paintings, Renaissance frescoes and Versailles-style hall of mirrors, this is one impressive dwelling. Many of the period rooms date from the 18th century, which means they boast the ornate baroque furnishings and gilded ceilings we’ve come to associate — probably because of Versailles — with royal abodes.
For such a tiny place, Monaco has a lot of distinct neighborhoods. In a day’s worth of hiking up and down the hilly streets, you can take in the dressy bustle of Monte Carlo, the curving beach promenade at Larvotto, several high-rise residential zones and Monaco-Ville, where the palm-shaded villas sit atop a rocky promontory with sweeping sea views from every angle.
It’s a fascinating microcosm, but what it certainly isn’t is a relaxing Mediterranean hideaway; compared to its laid-back Riviera neighbors, trafficky, built-up Monaco can feel like Manhattan. If it’s a quiet seaside village you’re looking for, stick to Portofino.
But if you’re curious to see how many yachts, Ferraris, variants on the English and French languages, banks, cupolas and turrets a country can pack into 482 acres, then no other destination will do but Monaco.
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