__________________ Nassau _________________
HERALD All the news of the Five Towns
State Route 878 renovations
Page 8
Page 14
Vol. 101 No. 42
oCToBER 10 - 16, 2024
Se rving Th e Greate r Fiv e Town s fo r alm ost 45 ye ars!
Learn more guraljcc.org
$1.00
516-569-6733
126840 11119028
A 5K tradition in Atlantic Beach
Programs and services for all ages and abilities
Five Towns natives reunite for storm relief By PARKER SCHUG pschug@liherald.com
Jeffrey Bessen/Herald
Nearly 1,500 people from the Five Towns and surrounding communities showed their support for Israel at a rally at Andrew J. Parise Park in Cedarhurst last Sunday. Story, more photos, Page 3.
Relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which tore through communities in the Southeast, reunited four Five Towns natives, who got their start as first responders locally. Mike Beilinson, James McHugh, Ryan Norman and Anthony Viverito were surprised to see their names listed together on a Federal Emergency Management Agency team that responded to the hurricane late last month. “It’s pretty awesome that randomly we all wound up on this deployment,” Viverito wrote in a CoNTINued oN PAge 10
Helping Israel, one year later By PARKER SCHUG
pschug@liherald.com
Starting last fall, donations of duffel bags and supplies for Israel Defense Force soldiers piled up in a warehouse in Lawrence as Five Towns residents scrambled to help the war effort in Israel after Hamas attacked music festivalgoers and other innocent civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. One year later, support is still pouring out of the Five Towns, and especially from the Israel Chesed Center on Peninsula Boulevard in Hewlett,
where volunteers take on all types of service projects to aid soldiers and residents of Israel who are living amid an expanding war. To honor the lives of hostage who died, as well as those still in captivity and all of the people impacted by the war, the Chesed Center held a service with music, prayer, speakers and videos on a large screen in its parking lot on Monday, the anniversary of the attacks. Community members filled hundreds of chairs with the hostages’ photos taped to them,
to reflect on the year since the start of the war and to inspire the support to continue. Yakir Wachstock, founder of Boots for Israel, a partner organization of the center that supplies IDF soldiers with boots, spoke first, and said the group has sent 65,000 pairs of boots thanks to the help of “regular people” like Moshe Bodner and Jeff Eisenberg, founders of the Israel Chesed Center. “What’s special is what we can get done if we work together,” Wachstock said. David Devor, chairman of
Nevut, a “lone soldier” support organization, shared his story, and how his mission has ramped up since last Oct. 7. “We went from working with around 700 soldiers to right now, we’re handling and dealing with close to 3,000 soldiers,” Devor said of the organization, which helps so-called lone soldiers — those who were not living in Israel but chose to go and fight there — and their families. Fay Feder, creator of Pens and Swords, an advocacy group for Israel, spoke about her organization’s mission.
“We write to government, schools, businesses, hospitals, wherever,” Feder said. “We see that Israel needs our support or we fight antisemitism. We support Jewish students across America, and it’s really important for us to get involved.” Feder said that 15,000 people across the country have signed up for the Pens and Swords initiative, helping to make significant change, including sending mass emails to speak for or against ideas. “When 8,000 people send CoNTINued oN PAge 7