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Queens Jewish Council honors 3 at breakfast

By Dustin Brown

After a year marked by hardship in both New York and Israel, the Queens Jewish Community Council came together at a breakfast Sunday to install its new officers and honor three individuals for their commitment to bettering the community.

Jan Fenster of Richmond Hill was sworn-in as the organization’s president, an office held for the past four years by St. John’s University professor Sandra Alfonsi, who was also one of the morning’s three honorees. She received the Community Service Award.

“I have big shoes to fill, even though Sandra’s feet are small,” Fenster said after she and the council’s new board of directors had taken their oath of office.

Sgt. Joshua Genn, a member of the Queens District Attorney’s Detective Squad who assisted with the recovery effort at Ground Zero, received the Claire Shulman Public Service Award, and the Chesed Award was bestowed upon world-renowned cantor Sol Zim of the Hollis Hills Jewish Center.

But in the background remained painful memories of Sept. 11 as well as an acute awareness of the strife in Israel, where a protracted conflict between Jews and Palestinians has caused even greater bloodshed in recent months.

Many who spoke during the lengthy program saw the American war on terrorism and the Israeli conflict as inextricably linked, bringing the two countries even closer for Jews who already feel a strong allegiance to both.

“What is happening in Israel today is reminiscent of what happened in September,” said former Borough President Claire Shulman, after whom one of the group’s awards is named.

Her successor, Borough President Helen Marshall, saw the Sept. 11 attack as the country’s first taste of a threat long familiar to Israel.

“What we learned Israel already knew — we now know what terrorism means,” she said.

The year has been a difficult one for the Queens Jewish Community Council as well, a community service organization based in Forest Hills that includes about 90 synagogues and Jewish groups as members. Executive Director Manny Behar said the council was forced to lay off three people, or half its staff, when Mayor Giuliani froze its city contracts shortly after Sept. 11, delaying funds typically received in the fall until January.

But after relishing a long, hearty meal, perhaps the most basic of Jewish traditions, the few hundred people who gathered at the Bayside Jewish Center for the 6th Annual Testimonial and Installation Breakfast turned their attention to the positive work of three mentsches — Yiddish for do-gooders — who made a trying time more bearable.

Each was awarded a small glass tzadakah box, which is used to collect charitable contributions with tzadakah translating literally to mean “justice.”

A powerful singer who appears in concerts around the world, Zim is also a prolific writer of Jewish songs.

“There’s no Jewish congregation in the country that doesn’t sing a Sol Zim melody,” he said. “I try to create a universal type of feeling about Judaism through my music.”

To that end, he said, “a lot of my songs sound a lot like Disney.”

Genn accepted his award with the humble gratitude of a true public servant.

“There are plenty of people that I felt risked a lot more, did a lot more,” he said. “I just had what I thought was a small role.”

With her tenure having come to a close, Alfonsi said she looks forward to continuing her involvement with the borough’s Jewish community.

Fenster, who is nicknamed “Jerusalem Jan,” promised to press forward with the council’s community service in Queens and boost its support of Israel through a boroughwide Jerusalem Day celebration and possibly a solidarity mission to Israel, where she hopes to spend the summer.

Adapting a passage from the Torah to capture what she sees as the mission of the Queens Jewish Community Council, Fenster said “we are our brothers’ keepers.”

Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154