LIC ceremony marks revival of traditional Jewish beliefs

Nachum Wineburg stood on a chair inside the Congregation Sons of Israel synagogue in Astoria Sunday as relatives and friends, one by one, snipped off locks of his long, wavy hair. It was the first time 3-year-old Nachum had ever had his hair cut, in a rare Jewish tradition known as “upshernish,” that represents the beginning of a boy’s formal education.

It was also the first time anyone in the room could remember the rite being performed in Astoria, something Nachum’s father, Rabbi Zev Wineburg, hopes to change. Wineburg, a rabbi in the Chabad-Lubovitch Jewish movement, is trying to lead a revival in traditional Jewish practices in Astoria and Long Island City, where a once-thriving Jewish population has become older and more secular.

“This is the making of a new community,” Wineburg said.

Although he and his wife Rivka now live in Crown Heights, they have been working with the Sons of Israel for eight months and are looking for homes in Long Island City. As the area grows as a destination for young people and families, the Wineburgs hope to build a foundation for those who wish to practice traditional Judaism. They decided to hold Nachum’s upshernish at the Crescent Street synagogue as a symbolic beginning of that revival.

“They don’t remember the last time when this happened here because usually this happens in a young community,” Wineburg said.

According to Arthur Leon, president of the neighboring synagogue Adath Israel, Long Island City had a vibrant Jewish population in decades past. The Queensview and Queensview West co-op apartments and the Ravenswood housing project, which was originally a middle-income development, were home to many Jewish World War II veterans, he said. But the community has faded in many ways.

“Our synagogue used to have 300 members. Now we have 30,” Leon, 80, said. “I don’t think there’s one young Jewish couple in the building that I’m in.”

But there are signs of a resurgence. The Sons of Israel synagogue has an eclectic congregation with members originally from Mexico, Guatemala and Asian countries. Yaela Datuin is a Filipino immigrant who converted to Judaism four years ago and joined the Sons of Israel. She now runs a kosher market on the Upper West Side.

“We know that there are many Jews in the community, but they don’t know about us or they think we’re a closed community,” she said. “Once you discover us, you stay.”

The Chabad-Lubovitch movement that the Wineburgs practice is a non-denominational tradition, although adherents tend to be Orthodox or Hasidic Jews. The upshernish rite, performed when a boy turns 3 and begins asserting his independence, draws on verses in Deuteronomy in which God compares humans to trees, Wineburg said.

Just as a small mark on a young tree will expand as the tree grows, he said, “when a child is the young age of 3, any experience they have and any information they have is going to shape their future.” The rite marks not only the beginning of a boy’s formal education but also the start of his responsibility to others. To that end, as each person went to cut a lock of Nachum’s hair Sunday, they gave him a coin to put in a specially made container designated for charity.

“Part of the education is to start his life with charity and with kindness,” Wineburg said.