Jewish American Heritage Month

As Jews, we must respond to the surge of the Delta variant – Jewish Herald-Voice

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Last Thursday, July 29, President Joe Biden challenged America to renew its drive to vaccinate Americans against the coronavirus and the deadly Delta variant.

This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, the president said, as he urged some 90 million unvaccinated Americans to get inoculated.

People are dying and will die who dont have to die. If youre out there unvaccinated, you dont have to die. Read the news, said Biden.

News reports have proliferated about Americans stricken with the virus who now regret not receiving the vaccine. Others believe their personal liberties are infringed by being vaccinated at the behest of federal, state or local government officials. The latter is muddled reasoning. A primary function of government at all levels is to protect the publics health, safety and welfare.

Avoiding vaccination can be disastrous. The New York Times reported in depth on the remorse of the acutely ill who rejected injections. For example, Mindy Greene watched her 42-year-old husband, Russ, struggle for breath while assisted by a respirator.

We did not get the vaccine, she wrote on Facebook. I read all kinds of things about the vaccine, and it scared me. So, I made the decision and prayed about it and got the impression we would be okay, the Times reported.

Such was not the case. As Russ Greene struggled to survive, his wife made a candid admission. If I had the information I have today, we would have gotten vaccinated, Mindy Greene wrote on Facebook.

Regrettably, the same day that President Biden invoked his bully pulpit to inspire Americans to get vaccinated, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order forbidding local government officials from imposing safety measures based upon what is happening in particular cities and counties.

Texans have mastered the safe practices that help to prevent and avoid the spread of COVID-19, Abbott said in a public statement. They have the individual right and responsibility to decide for themselves and their children whether they will wear masks, open their businesses and engage in leisure activities. Vaccines, which remain in abundant supply, are the most effective defense against the virus, and they will always remain voluntary never forced in the state of Texas.

The Houston Chronicle blasted Abbotts feckless leadership in an editorial. Buzzwords such as choice and responsibility sound great in stump speeches but make little sense in terms of public health: one persons choice to go maskless can affect someone elses health. Our personal responsibility isnt limited to protecting our own bodies and families: it includes our responsibility to act in the best interest of our community.

The community includes people who cant be vaccinated, the Chronicle continued. Among them: more than half of the states 5.4 million public school students under 12, for whom the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve a vaccine. Wearing a mask provides some measure of protection for a student, but far less if hes the only kid in class wearing one.

As Jews, we must be guided by the teachings of Torah. Our sacred text stresses that, as individuals, we must take responsibility for the well-being of those around us. Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor (Leviticus 19:16).

Rabbi Micah Peltz of Temple Beth Shalom in Cherry Hill, N.J., has written of Judaisms emphasis on primacy of following medical advice. The rabbi wrote that following safety measures is necessary during this time of pandemic, like wearing masks, washing hands and maintaining physical distancing, are not just recommended but are obligated by Halakha, Jewish law.

If there is even a chance that our behavior can protect our lives, and the lives of others, then that would take precedence over any other consideration, noted Rabbi Peltz.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins have urged Abbott to allow them, as public officials closest to their communities, to tailor health care measures based upon what actually is happening in their respective communities.

The governors order is based on polling data of what Republican primary voters want to hear; conversely, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations are based on the most recent data regarding the much more contagious Delta variant and what scientists and medical professionals have learned, thus far, to combat the spread and harm of COVID, said Judge Jenkins after Abbott issued his restrictions.

Leaders may have different opinions. But, Judaism teaches that each of us has a responsibility to ourselves, our families, our communities to protect health. Wearing a mask may be bothersome, but it is insignificant compared to the virulence of the Delta variant and the coronavirus.

We pray that the Delta variant will subside. Yet, none among us can escape our responsibilities to each other and to our entire community. We all are connected to each other. Let us follow Judaisms teachings that good health is a gift from Hashem to be protected, cherished and preserved.

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Judge orders closure of Hasidic school that opened in a Monroe house without approval – Times Herald-Record

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

MONROE - A judge has ordered the immediate closure of a Hasidic girls school that opened in a house without town approval and kept operating after the building inspector issued citations and demanded it close.

State Supreme Court Judge Robert Onofry approved Monroe's request for a temporary restraining order on Thursday, three days after attorneys for the town and property argued before him in a conference call. The order requires the school to close while the underlying dispute plays out in court.

Onofry said in his decision he ordered the closure for the "safety and welfare of the children" and because the town planning board hasn't issued the special use permit that the property owner needs to turn the house into a school.

The judge also ordered the town to inspect the house within seven days to see if the previous safety violations have been corrected, as the owner's attorneys have stated in court papers and during oral arguments. The violations included exposed electrical wires and lack of fire alarms and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

The Town will not allow the safety of the children in our community to be an afterthought," town Supervisor Tony Cardone said in a statement applauding Onofry's decision.

Closure dispute: Lawyers debate fate of unapproved Monroe school

College plans: Do students need vaccinations this fall?

Attorneys for owner Ahron Kestenbaum said in court that the school was serving about 120 students and had opened before getting approval early this summer after being forced to leave its previous location. Kestenbaum's application to turn 20 Allison Drive into a school has been pending before the planning board since November, according to town records.

Kestenbaum bought the 27-year-old home and eight-acre property for $415,000 in 2019. The house has 6,300 square feet of space with its finished basement included, and is hidden from view at the end of long driveway on a residential cul de sac.

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Wanted to build my character organically: Dave Davies on playing Hasidic Jew in ‘The Vigil’ – Devdiscourse

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Actor Dave Davies, the star of ''The Vigil'', said he didn't succumb to stereotypes while playing a grief-stricken Jewish man in the horror movie.

''The Vigil'', which comes from debutante filmmaker Keith Thomas, is set in Brooklyn's ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community.

It follows a man, named Yakov Ronen, who is tasked to sit as a Shomer, the ritualistic practice of looking after a dead body over the course of one night. But during the course of the night, he is targeted by a malevolent spirit known as a Mazzik.

Davies, who previously made appearances in movies such as ''The Big Short'', ''Logan'' and ''Greyhound'', said he instantly agreed to do the film when Thomas sent him the script.

The actor, however, soon realized that Yakov was not an easy character to play on screen.

''When I started really trying to live in the character of Yakov, it came with a number of difficulties. He is struggling and has mental health issues. He lives with a lot of guilt and fear. He comes from a culture that I didn't know and wasn't familiar with. ''I had to learn about it. Plus, he sounds very different to myself. He has an accent and English is not his first language. So all those things were the beginning of me trying to piece together who Yakov is. And over time trying to organically build this character,'' Davies told PTI in an interview.

The actor, who is in his early 30s, said he made sure his performance as Yakov didn't look like an impression. ''I never wanted to do an impression. I never want it to be copying something that I thought was how Yakov was supposed to sound. I wanted to build it organically so that Yakov had the luxury of being his own person, his own character. ''So I had to listen to a lot of people and how they sounded. And then I had to listen to a lot of people's stories and where they came from. It was over the course of about two months, probably of thinking about him all the time,'' Davies said.

The actor worked with a dialect coach to get accustomed to Yiddish, the language primarily used by the Hasidic Jews.

''Oftentimes, in films, you see a scene, where maybe two Russian characters will say hello to each other in Russian. And then for the sake of the audience, they'll finish the scene in English. ''And it was very important to me that was never the case. At any point, if it should have been in Yiddish, then it was in Yiddish.'' But the main challenge for Davies was to understand the mindset of a man, who is depressed and tormented by his past.

''Diving into Yakov's sense of loneliness was something that was really difficult for me to explore because I was living in an apartment that they put me up in and it was very isolated.

''So I was sitting alone in this apartment and was imagining things in corners. I was trying to get into the mindset of someone who is seeing things and who's afraid of their own health. And who's afraid of their own safety. And it was a very painful place to live in,'' he added.

''The Vigil'' comes at a time when filmmakers have started exploring different cultures to tell varied and fresh stories.

Films like ''Get Out'', Robert Eggers' ''The Witch'' and Ari Aster's ''Midsommer'' are products of this change.

Davies said he was glad that filmmakers are mining different cultures to tell diverse tales.

''I think the more cultures and the more human stories you have to explore, the better it is. What's really great about filmmaking and about art is it gives us the opportunity to share our experiences and live other people's experiences.

''And in that way, we understand each other better, which allows us to talk to people from across the world in extremely different cultures and understand each other a little bit more,'' he added.

''The Vigil'' is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

No good answers in Britain | Columnists | willistonherald.com – Williston Daily Herald

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

By the time you read this column, Alta Fixler may no longer be with us in this world. Alta is a 2-year-old who is severely disabled. Born premature, she showed no signs of life until doctors resuscitated her and put her on a ventilator. After spending her entire existence on life support, Royal Manchester Childrens Hospital has now decided that her time is up, at the objection of her parents. And the parents are running out of options.

The Fixler family are Hasidic Jews with Israeli citizenship. They want to bring her to Israel, where doctors are willing to see if they can do anything for her. A charity has offered the family a free plane ride wherever they want to take her theres a visa for her to come to the United States as well (her father is also an American citizen). Neither the British High Court nor the European Court of Appeals will help her mother and father. A judge on the High Court, Alistair MacDonald, went so far as to say that Alta has no religious-liberty rights because we dont know that Alta would share her familys values. Alta Fixler is 2 years old! Parents make those kinds of decisions for their young children. Or at least thats the way it should be.

Manchester Childrens Hospital says that Alta is in constant pain, but her parents dispute that. A judge on the High Court dismissed the opinion and observations of her parents and their rabbi because none of them are medically qualified. He wrote that Alta has and will continue to have minimal or no awareness of her family and social relationships, minimal or no ability to respond to external stimuli so as to take comfort or enjoyment from those who love her or the world around her and engage in the enlargement of knowledge of her world.

He said that continuing life-sustaining treatment will confine Alta to being kept alive for the remainder of her life in a hospital room without windows, her life sustained by machines in a world she cannot meaningfully perceive or connect with.

Should doctors and judges be determining what makes for a meaningful life? Should parents be stripped of their rights to care for their child? No one thinks the chances of Alta recovering are very good, but does that mean her life should be ended, especially when her parents dont want it to?

And forget Altas life; the court wont even let her die on her familys terms. The court refused to allow Alta to be released from her hospital prison so that she could be taken off life support in Israel, where she would be surrounded by her physical and religious families, because there would be no medical benefit.

But what about spiritual benefit, to both Alta and her grieving family and friends? But the court appears to be completely uninterested in the feelings of Altas parents.

This case is tragic and cruel. There appear to be no good answers. But Britain seems determined to see this child die within its borders, on its timetable. The judges and doctors have the best of intentions: an alleviation of suffering. But the doctors arent God. Courts arent, either. And while I certainly agree that there are times when palliative care is perfectly appropriate and humane, the way this is all happening is chilling. The temporal isnt everything, and we should all be able to agree that the spiritual care of a child is well within parents rights.

If you are a person who prays, keep the Fixlers, all of them, in your prayers. Extreme cases like this expose our dangerous, dehumanizing secularization in the West.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living. She is also chair of Cardinal Dolans pro-life commission in New York. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.

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Chabad rabbis took their first group photo since the pandemic and were fined by Kazakhstan for not distancing – Forward

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

By Yehezkel Itkin

Chabad rabbis from across the former Soviet Union pose for a group photo in Almaty, Kazakhstan, July 29, 2021.

(JTA) For Chabad-Lubavitch, major events arent over until they take a group photograph.

The tradition, covering the international Hasidic movement, creates much more than a souvenir. It has also generated a visual record of Chabads growth from a small group in the 18th century in what was then the Russian empire to a global movement with branches today in dozens of countries.

Last month in Kazakhstan, the photo opportunity yielded something else: a fine for violating rules against large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 200 Chabad rabbis had convened in Almaty, the largest city in the Central Asian republic. Their picture taken outside the Rixos Hotel caught the attention of local authorities grappling with a worsening pandemic in a country where only about a quarter of the population is vaccinated. They issued a fine of about $200 to the Central Synagogue of Almaty for violating social distancing measures, the Kazinform news agency reported Monday.

Elchanan Cohen, the chief rabbi of the Almaty region, did not immediately reply to a request for comment by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the fine.

The gathering was significant for several reasons.

It marked the first official large-scale group photo for Chabad since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic early last year. It also was the 77th anniversary of the death in Almaty of Rabbi Levi-Yitzchak Schneerson, the father of the movements last spiritual leader, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and the first gathering since the Kazakh government added the gravesite of the elder Schneerson to its list of national heritage sites last year.

And the event brought together two rabbis who reportedly have an uneasy relationship: Berel Lazar, Chabads chief of operations throughout much of the former Soviet Union, and Yeshaya Cohen, the chief rabbi of Kazakhstan.

Local philanthropists in Kazakhstan have enabled Cohen to operate relatively independently from Lazar, who is based in Moscow but has a hand in Chabads work throughout the region. This dynamic has led to tension, according to multiple reports, and the fact that both men posed together added to the significance of the photo that signaled a return to normalcy, Zvika Klein, a journalist for Makor Rishon who specializes in Jewish world news, wrote on Twitter.

With 200 men on hand, the gathering was a far cry from previous reunions. More than 6,000 rabbis posed at the 2019 annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries the last such event to date. (Last years conference was virtual and gave rise to a days-long online celebration.)

The record attendance in 2019 required Chabad photographer Mendel Grossbaum, who has perfected his group photo techniques over the years, to switch to an ultra-wide angle fisheye lens: The normal one could no longer capture everyone in front of Chabad headquarters in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

The post Chabad rabbis took their first group photo since the pandemic and were fined for not distancing appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Chabad rabbis took their first group photo since the pandemic and were fined by Kazakhstan for not distancing

Parents of brain damaged girl enlist US and Israeli politicians to maintain treatment as legal options run out – The BMJ

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

The parents of a two year old girl with serious brain damage have enlisted politicians in the US and Israel to lobby the UK government after exhausting the available legal remedies in their bid to stop doctors withdrawing life sustaining treatment.

Mr Justice MacDonald ruled in the High Court last May that Alta Fixsler, who suffered a severe hypoxic brain injury at birth, has no hope of improvement, that she suffers consistent pain, and that it would be in her best interests to be allowed to die.

She is cared for in a hospital run by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, where she is mechanically ventilated with a tracheostomy and fed by a tube. Her parents, Hasidic Jews and Israeli citizens who moved to the UK in 2014, want to take her to a hospital in

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Texas student maps every Manhattan address that used to be a synagogue – The Jerusalem Post

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Writer Luc Sante calls them the ghosts of Manhattan. Those are the souls of the poor and marginal people, now dead, whose presence can be felt like a shade in the history of now affluent neighborhoods, where they push invisibly behind it to erect their memorials in the collective unconscious.

That nail salon at 90 Clinton St.? That used to be Linath Hazedeck Anshei Sadlikoff. The deli at E. 104th St.? Something called Maczikei Torath Kodesh.

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I felt that if I stared at the photos long enough the color would fade and Id see spectral images of Jewish ancestors entering these long-gone places after dodging horse-drawn carts, or steering boxy automobiles with high fenders and wide running boards.

Even the teeth-cracking names in the old Ashkenazi spellings hinted at something both ancient and familiar, like a cave drawing or the empty mezuzah cases you see in medieval ghettoes.

The database listed over 1,000 names and addresses of past and present Manhattan synagogues and Jewish organizations. Shreeve created a big spread sheet and then geocoded a Twitter bot using Google APIs and Python (I admit she lost me at this point), scheduling the bot to automatically post Google Streetview photographs of the places where synagogues and Jewish organizations used to be.

She said she was originally curious about naming patterns and mapping out where people came from and really interested in thinking about the geography of Eastern Europe and see how people organized in New York based on where they originally came from.

So youre a student? I asked.

At the University of Texas, in Austin.

Graduate school, I presume?

No, Im an undergraduate. My major is rhetoric and history.

Wait, I asked. How old are you?

I just turned 20, Shreeve said. It was just last week, so I am not used to saying that.

So forget the white hair. And to cut to the chase here, you can also forget the Jewish part. Shreeve describes herself as a descendant of Mormon pioneer immigrants on her fathers side and Irish famine immigrants on her mothers.

This is honestly weirdly random even for me personally, she said. I have no family connections. Im just a big fan of Jewish history.

And why is that?

Because I am a huge fan of Yiddish, she said. I needed to take a language class. When I heard that my school in Austin was teaching a language with less than 2 million speakers, I thought it was a rare and unique opportunity to learn a niche language.

Her professor was Itzik Gottesman, whom it turns out I knew when he was an editor at the Yiddish Forward and is a notable figure in New York Yiddish circles. Shreeve had read an article that Gottesman had written about how synagogues in Brooklyn had become churches, gymnasia and YMCAs. For a separate geography course, she decided to combine mapping with what she learned in Yiddish class.

(Gottesman referred to Shreeve in an email as a star student.)

On her own website, Shreeve explains the impetus behind the project.

People following this bot get regular reminders that New York City used to be different. Different people lived and gathered there and had a different way of life, she writes. This bot encourages people to explore their own cities and wonder What used to be here? Who gathered here?

I find the site addictive. Every address can lead you down a rabbit hole, discovering along the way layers upon layers of New York Jewish history. And it is not just ghosts in empty sockets: Occasionally there are signs of the original synagogues. At 317 E. 8th St. in the East Village downtown, you can still see the tall sanctuary windows and Star of David motif that now provide a funky historical motif for a condo owners living room. The Anshei Kalusz (people of Kalusz, Ukraine) Lechetz Yosha building was sold to a developer by its Orthodox congregation in 2000 following a battle with a rabbi and medical marijuana activist who had hoped it would become a nondenominational worship space for artists and other creatives. It was the last synagogue in the once gritty Alphabet City neighborhood.

At 58-60 Rivington St., plaques representing the Ten Commandments and two roaring lions of Judah mark what had once been the Warschuer (Warsaw) Congregation, which itself had supplanted a congregation from Jassy, Romania. The original congregation had hired a young architect to design the current building in 1903. That architect, Emery Roth, would go on to build various New York landmarks, including the Ritz Hotel Tower and The Beresford. Some 10,000 people attended the synagogues dedication.

After the Warschuers inherited the building in what appears to have been a hostile takeover, it became a favorite for local celebrities, including the Gershwins, Sen. Jacob Javits and the comedian George Burns. Or at least that was the shul they didnt go to.

The neighborhood changed, and by 1973 the building was derelict. It was bought by the artist and metalworker Hale Garland in 1979 and apparently still functions as an artists studio.

Happily, some of the addresses arent ghosts at all. There is still a synagogue at 137 E. 29th St. Congregation Talmud Torah Adereth El says it has held services at the same location (albeit not the same building) since 1863 the longest continuous service at the same site in the city. New Yorks oldest congregation, Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, was established in 1654, but it has only been in the same location since 1897.

And 308 E. 55th St., once known as Chevra Bnei Leive and founded in 1906, is now Congregation Or Olam, which became a Conservative synagogue in 1966.

And yet most of the tweets feature gas stations, apartment buildings, housing developments and churches where Jewish communities flourished, struggled and eventually moved on, replaced by other groups and institutions that represent the citys never-ending process of regeneration.

If there is a connection for Shreeve between old Jewish New York and present-day Austin, it is in the experience of immigrants.

The demographics of New York are different [than Austin], but you still see how immigrants totally change the landscape, she said. Comparing the history of the Jewish people and Hispanics and immigrant at large, you see how history does have a tendency to repeat itself.

Shreeve has 1,016 entries in her database and said she expects the project to wind up soon. She hopes to find records for the other boroughs, especially Brooklyn, although a notoriously inept remapping of Brooklyns streets in the mid-1800s might make that project impossible.

She also hopes to get to New York one day, perhaps when the pandemic is really over.

Looking at a map is not the same as walking the streets and seeing that what is currently a movie theater or a parking lot once housed minyans or charity organizations, she said. I want people to reflect on the space, and to think of the immigrant stories and religion stories that came from there.

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Whats New on Netflix & Top 10s: August 6th, 2021 – What’s on Netflix

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Hit & Run Season 1 new on Netflix Picture: Netflix

Happy Friday and welcome to your end-of-week daily recap of whats new on Netflix. Weve got 11 new titles to cover which hit Netflix between yesterday and today including the headline Netflix Originals for the week. Heres whats new and whats trending on Netflix for August 6th, 2021.

Also, you may have seen weve begun collating all the new releases currently lined up for September 2021 too.

Looking ahead to the weekend, youve got the martial arts comedy The Paper Tigers dropping tomorrow (August 7th) and the excellent Dustin Hoffman-directed movie Quartet on Sunday.

Lets get into some of the highlights (more weekly highlight recaps via our what to watch section over the weekend).

Genre:Animation, Adventure, ComedyDirector:Kirk DeMicco, Brandon JeffordsCast:Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ynairaly Simo, Zoe SaldanaWriter:Peter Barsocchini, Kirk DeMicco, Quiara Alegra HudesRuntime:103 min

We begin with the third major animation title Netflix has picked up from Sony Animation this year in the form of Vivo.

The musical movie truly showcases the creative talent that Sony Animation has to offer and once again, demonstrates the broad talent of Lin-Manuel Miranda too.

Reviews have generally been favorable toward the movie. On RottenTomatoes, the movie is now certified fresh sitting at 89%. James Berardinelli for ReelViews said the movie is one of the best-animated films to have gone directly to Netflix.

Genre:Drama, Fantasy, HorrorDirector:Just PhilippotCast:Suliane Brahim, Sofian Khammes, Marie NarbonneWriter:Jrme Genevray, Franck VictorRuntime:101 min

Coming to Netflix today from France is a new boutique movie in the form of The Swarm.

Heres what you can expect from the thriller:

A single mother breeds locusts as high-protein food, but has trouble getting them to reproduce until she finds they have a taste for blood.

Friend of the site, The Netflix Film Project, gave the film a recommendation saying:

The premise of The Swarm sounds very B-movie, but it is a great eco-horror and artistically at least, this years The Platform.

Genre:Action, Crime, DramaCast:Lior Raz, Kaelen Ohm, Sanaa Lathan, Moran Rosenblatt, Lior Ashkenazi, Gregg HenryRuntime:54 mins

A brand new action crime series with Lior Raz (known for Netflixs Fauda series) just dropped on Netflix today.

It tells the story of man who has his life flipped upside down when his wife is mysteriously killed and he goes looking for answers.

Top talent is visible in front of and behind the cameras on this one and all the marketing material is mostly rubbish (in our opinion) we hope this one grows in popularity over time.

Genre:DocumentaryDirector:Laura FairrieCast:Hazel Collins, Joan Collins, Jennifer DaughertyRuntime:96 min

Added to Netflix yesterday and making its SVOD debut on Netflix is the documentary that looks into the life of Jackie Collins looking to answer the question is she a genius or a con artist.

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A 20-year-old college student in Texas is mapping every Manhattan address that used to be a synagogue – Forward

Posted By admin on August 7, 2021

Amy Shreeve developed the Twitter account This Used to Be a Synagogue as a rhetoric and history major at the University of Texas-Austin.

(JTA) (New York Jewish Week via JTA) Writer Luc Sante calls them the ghosts of Manhattan. Those are the souls of the poor and marginal people, now dead, whose presence can be felt like a shade in the history of now affluent neighborhoods, where they push invisibly behind it to erect their memorials in the collective unconscious.

Santes poltergeists came to mind after I stumbled on a strange little Twitter account called This Used to Be a Synagogue (@OldShulSpots). Once a day or so the account delivers a photograph of some nondescript street view in Manhattan, with a tweet stating the address and name of the congregation that used to sit on the site.

That nail salon at 90 Clinton St.? That used to be Linath Hazedeck Anshei Sadlikoff. The deli at E. 104th St.? Something called Maczikei Torath Kodesh.

I felt if I stared at the photos long enough the color would fade and Id see spectral images of Jewish ancestors entering these long-gone places after dodging horse-drawn carts and boxy automobiles with high fenders and wide running boards.

Even the teeth-cracking names in the old Ashkenazi spellings hinted at something both ancient and familiar, like a cave drawing or the empty mezuzah cases you see in medieval ghettoes.

For a time the account didnt explain much about who was behind it. I assumed it was a white-haired amateur historian of the Lower East Side or a Jewish conceptual artist who was making a point about gentrification.

So I sent a direct message and soon heard back from the creator, who identified herself as Amy Shreeve and agreed to chat on the phone. Shreeve explained that she started the account as an academic project in something called commemorative geography, which is the study of memory and location. She explained that she was a history major and had accessed a public database from the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

The database listed over 1,000 names and addresses of past and present Manhattan synagogues and Jewish organizations. Shreeve created a big spread sheet and then geocoded a Twitter bot using Google APIs and Python (I admit she lost me at this point), scheduling the bot to automatically post Google Streetview photographs of the places where synagogues and Jewish organizations used to be.

She said she was originally curious about naming patterns and mapping out where people came from and really interested in thinking about the geography of Eastern Europe and see how people organized in New York based on where they originally came from.

So youre a student? I asked.

At the University of Texas, in Austin.

Graduate school, I presume?

No, Im an undergraduate. My major is rhetoric and history.

Wait, I asked. How old are you?

I just turned 20, Shreeve said. It was just last week, so I am not used to saying that.

So forget the white hair. And to cut to the chase here, you can also forget the Jewish part. Shreeve describes herself as a descendant of Mormon pioneer immigrants on her fathers side and Irish famine immigrants on her mothers.

This is honestly weirdly random even for me personally, she said. I have no family connections. Im just a big fan of Jewish history.

And why is that?

Because I am a huge fan of Yiddish, she said. I needed to take a language class. When I heard that my school in Austin was teaching a language with less than 2 million speakers, I thought it was a rare and unique opportunity to learn a niche language.

Her professor was Itzik Gottesman, who it turns out I knew when he was an editor at the Yiddish Forward and is a notable figure in New York Yiddish circles. Shreeve had read an article that Gottesman had written about how synagogues in Brooklyn had become churches, gymnasia and YMCAs. For a separate geography course, she decided to combine mapping with what she learned in Yiddish class.