But one thing occurs to me: It was clear there would be flooding. In a place next to the ocean, why weren't the contents of the ground floor moved to to a higher location? If it took so long to build this schul, I simply don't understand how secure arrangements weren't made for such highly valued religious objects.

How could you do that! What unpreparedness! What non-responsibility!

Wasn't this an evacuation zone, or a high risk area to say the least. I agree with the other two. The only excuse can be if they were fleeing for their lives which seems very unlikely if they had 2/3 days notice.

How could the community not have taken steps to save the sifrei torah ??

Astonishing that Brighton Beach was wholly unprepared. Valuable cars, equipment and property were left in the flood zone. The food from the supermarkets was not removed. People could have taken it to higher floors. Together with dry ice. The elderly living on the 20th and 30th floor should have been moved to lower floors. The community failed, and this must be a lesson to Brooklyn, New Jersey, etc. Next time, this can be done.

As valuable as these things may be, they are only things. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to thank God that the loss of life was not much, much worse?

I completely agree with M. Hartley in Atlanta. Things, even holy, can be replaced but not human life. So stop your whining and start rebuilding already! Most likely there was just no time to move entire floors, two of them to be exact, to a higher location so the (right) choice was made to save one's life.

I notice the pic shows only women cleaning. I don't have to ask where the men are. Did these ladies have to carry the men on their backs through the floods? Sorry but this whining article is total bullshit. Chabad is one of the wealthiest religious organizations on earth, constantly tapping the general public for more funds. Personally I suspect this was allowed to happen in order to produce this "cause". Why on earth should anybody pay for the production of a Torah--especially huge amounts. These men do not work so let Chabad scribe another Torah and send it free if they're so godly.

Not all the Tora rolls of the world togeater cost even 1 human life no mather what religion is, but it's very sad to us to see even 1 of this Ithems as you say it like this in this conditions. There rolls them selves are not sacred but the content yes and to jewish people has a very spiritual hig value, is not the economic cost.

is one man working to, yo have to point stupid think's. Were is teh men's. may be helping other people? and 100% agree with Chabad coment.

Firstly, at the very forefront of the picture, in its left side, you have a very bearded religious Jewish male, possibly even from Chabad! Unless he's a circus bearded lady by your logic. Secondly, you did note that only one of the women in the picture is wearing fully modest attire per ultra-Orthodox dress codes? So I can but assume that we have a general collection of local residents here, rather than "oppressed ulra-Orthodox women, oh my". Thirdly, keep your stereotypes to yourself. My synagogue has two Chabad Rabbis - one works as a prison guard to provide for his family, the other as a teacher. And in general, most ultra-Orthodox men I know, and from Chabad in particular, work for a living. If you are basing your particular generalist statement based on Israeli yeshiva students, then let me remind you that this isn't Israel, and they don't have a law there that temporary military exemption means you can't be legally employed. And here *in* Israel, too, once that period passes or people serve in some capacity, people work. The alternative is starvation. Fourthly, I suspect safeguarding people was a bit more important than making sure the shul was watertight at the time.

Further, Torah scrolls are expensive. This is a fact. It's why insuring them remains a high expense for most synagogues. They're handmade items of deerskin parchment and specialized inks. The work is lengthy and painstaking, and any single mistake, be it in a letter, the spacing between words, or even the phonetic markings, means the entire scroll is disqualified and requires repair. They're expensive. And also highly valued as a central aspect of the Jewish faith - I find the implication that the Chabad shul deliberately allowed them to be destroyed to be a rather despicable slur. Further, Chabad aren't all that rich. Every community is expected to be entirely self sufficient, and traditionally it's the community that handles the writing of its own Torah scrolls and the day to day funding. A large part of that is inevitably through donations - since, last I checked, a synagogue doesn't earn money. It isn't a business. Of course, some people seem to perceive reality only through prejudice. These people went through a terrible disaster - some empathy won't hurt you.

What is your opinion of the "woman" at the left side of the picture, cleaning, wearing a large beard and kipa?

Con-Artist. You know, the one who was supposedly rescuing them from places like Auschwitz etc. The poor people from this shul probably paid a high price for these fake 'rescued' scrolls. Now they must pull an insurance scam to get their money back. Hence they were allowed to be damaged by this storm.

The siddur shown in the photo is not a good one. While the publisher attempts to put stars on the Sheva Na, it is not consistent. Obvious places such as the beginning of words are not included and the publisher is wrong on the Sheva na as often as he is right. To their credit, they are one of few that get the "Veht Hayeynu" correct in the blessings after the Haftarah. Art Scroll is probably one of the worst for using modern typography. Israel has a number of Siddurim that advance typography into the 21st century including the Tikkun "Simanim". Turning a tragedy into a blessing would be to re-evaluate the Siddurim to find ones that are not in the Guttenberg Age and buy Siddurim published in Israel to support Israel.

I am as Jew as they come. My maternal grand-father was a rabbi, my son studied in a yeshiva for six years; so yes, I consider myself a Jewess in its purest form. It's just I never cared much for material things, I still don't and to me a human life takes precedent and must be saved first.

Oy vey! Even the storms in New York are anti-semitic! Give money!

moved????????????????

If you know the answer of why Yitzchak is misspelled in Tehillim 105:9 with a Sin instead of a Tzadi, then you are not subject to the specific punishments in Tehillim 106:16-18 of Datan and Aviram and several more sequences in this chapter. The first step is to return to the Torah and Lashon Hakodesh. The ghettos of Europe, Polish fashions of the 17th century, and language derived from our enemies of our nation only distance one from our origins and Holy Heritage delivered by Moshe. I would be very interested to see if anyone understands this part of Tehillim properly.

daven for a new sefer Torah!rebuild in a better location.

please publish how to help !

Are you sure that , exept for those two in the forefront of the pic , the other cleaning people are Jewish ? I not , it's of course possible . Who knows ? Maybe someone from this community .