There might have been plenty of snow outside last Thursday, but Chabad of Bellmore-Merrick-Wantagh welcomed dozens of local folks inside for a tropical Purim celebration. The Jewish … more

Chabad leaders’ vision for a Jewish Community Center at 2174 Hewlett Ave., neighboring the newly renovated Merrick Mall Stop & Shop, is becoming a reality. more

Even as Stop & Shop employees, community leaders from the Chamber of Commerce and the fire department, a Town of Hempstead official and local reporters gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 7:45 a.m. last Friday, and snowflakes fell fast and thick, customers hurried past to see all that the new Merrick Mall supermarket offers and start filling their shopping carts. more

For the second time in recent years, the Merrick Jewish Centre drew hundreds of people to share in the joy of Hanukkah by lighting menorah candles together at the synagogue. more

The warning siren suddenly blared, and Rabbi Charles Klein, spiritual leader of the Merrick Jewish Centre, knew precisely what to do. Run. The siren, he said, “gave us 20 seconds to find a shelter.” Five seconds earlier, a Hamas rocket had pierced Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system, which is capable of shooting down 90 percent of the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Ten percent of Hamas rockets, however, make it through, as one did in late August, while Klein was touring Ashkelon, a city of 117,000 eight miles north of Gaza. Klein found shelter and survived the attack unscathed, but that moment of terror, he said, will remain with him for life. more

Bellmore-Merrick residents were able to gather around a festive table to commemorate the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt 3,300 years ago, thanks to the Chabad Center for Jewish Life. The … more

Chabad of Merrick-Bellmore-Wantagh transformed the Merrick Park golf clubhouse into a palace of sorts last weekend, when the Jewish organization hosted its eighth annual Purim celebration. more

Sixteen couples renewed their wedding vows in a large, joyous celebration on Jan. 25 at Temple Beth Am of Merrick and Bellmore. more

In the spring of 1991, I was preparing to leave New York and begin my rabbinic career in New Orleans. One of the doormen in the building I then lived in stopped me as I was going out. “I want to show you something,” he told me, and he opened up the Daily News. more

In the spring of 1962, six local Jewish families joined to found an Orthodox synagogue in Merrick. They rented a store on Merrick Avenue to gather and pray. Half a century later, the synagogue that they founded, Congregation Ohav Sholom, boasts 300 member families, is housed in a large brick building at 145 Merrick Ave. — roughly a half mile south of the original site — and is fully integrated into the fabric of the community’s religious life. more