More than 100 people showed up at the Islamic Association of Long Island March 28 to lend their support for Muslims around the world and pray for the victims of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Photo by Rita J. Egan
More than 100 people showed up at the Islamic Association of Long Island March 28 to lend their support for Muslims around the world and pray for the victims of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Photo by Rita J. Egan
More than 100 people showed up at the Islamic Association of Long Island March 28 to lend their support for Muslims around the world and pray for the victims of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Photo by Rita J. Egan
More than 100 people showed up at the Islamic Association of Long Island March 28 to lend their support for Muslims around the world and pray for the victims of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Photo by Rita J. Egan
On March 28, North Shore residents of various faiths gathered in Selden to show their support for Muslims around the world.
In response to the March 15 terrorist attacks in New Zealand mosques, a prayer vigil was held outside the Islamic Association of Long Island where more than 100 people, including members from the Three Village Interfaith Clergy Association and Building Bridges in Brookhaven, held hands and formed a ring around the mosque during a moment of silence. The symbol of solidarity took place after a brief prayer led by Rabbi Paul Sidlofsky of Temple Isaiah of Stony Brook.
Syed Rahman, current president of the Islamic Association of Long Island, said he was touched by the number of attendees.
“I’m glad so many people made the time to come over with busy workday schedules,” he said. “This is a big turnout. I think this is the biggest turnout since I’ve been president.”
Tom Lyon, a member of Building Bridges in Brookhaven, said more than half a dozen people from the organization attended. One of the group’s founding principles, he said, is based on a motto the members adapted when it was formed — “The most radical thing we can do is to introduce people to each other.”
“Sadly, on Long Island today, developing a diversity of friendships requires far more effort than it should,” Lyon said.
Rev. Steven Kim, pastor of Setauket United Methodist Church, who is also part of the Three Village Interfaith Clergy Association, attended the event.
“It was a night for Three Village residents to stand by the Islamic community regardless of our religions or persuasions in the wake of the tragedy in New Zealand,” he said. “It would be beneficial for us to pursue further opportunities in enhancing the mutual understanding and assuring the same humanity among the different ethnic and religious groups in our community.”
After the prayer vigil, the Three Village Interfaith Clergy Association hosted a discussion held inside the mosque titled “Belief and Truth from a Multifaith Perspective: Finding Unity in Diversity.” Professor Chris Sellers of Stony Brook University’s history department and director of the Center for the Study of Inequality and Social Justice moderated the discussion.
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center stood in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
Members of the Huntington Jewish Center gave gifts in solidarity with Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach in the wake of the New Zealand mass shootings. Photos from Eve Krief
In response to the March 15 terrorist attacks in New Zealand mosques, the Long Island Inclusive Communities Against Hate organized outreach events. Members of the Huntington Jewish Center presented baskets and gifts last week as a gesture of solidarity to members of Masjid Noor mosque and Huntington Muslim Youth Outreach. The groups celebrated Purim together, a Jewish holiday filled with feasting and rejoicing, that commemorates the saving of Jewish people from persecution during the ancient Persian empire.
Huntington resident Wajma Halimi-Modaser expressed gratitude for the gesture in a Facebook post.
“Appreciation and humbleness do not begin to describe how members of Masjid Noor felt by the kind and selfless sentiments displayed by members of the Huntington Jewish Center,” he said. “They took the opportunity to use this event to come visit and share their traditions. At the same time, show their sympathy. It is so wonderful to have support, love and respect for each other, especially during times of tragedy.”
The Masjid Noor Mosque also held March 22 an interfaith prayer service one week after the New Zealand massacres. Representatives from local school districts attended the service including Harborfields Central School District, Elwood Union Free School District and South Huntington Union Free School District.
“We gathered regardless of our faith, color, race, social background or age to send one specific message,” Laraki Zakia said in a Facebook post. “We were sending a message of love, forgiveness and hope, as well as vigilance and alertness, ready to look after one another and having each other’s back as one strong and loving community.”
The group also held and interfaith vigil March 22 with local clergy and Sen. Gaughran at the Masjid Noor mosque in Huntington.
From left, Tamar Cohen, Leah Ada Klein, Julia Berger and Max Kaylakov with their trophies at the award ceremony. Photo from The Chai Center
Winners from regional JewQ Championships from around the United States and abroad came together to face off at the international championships in Brooklyn on March 3.
Thousands of JewQ students in grades 3 to 6 from Hebrew schools around the globe learned and were tested on a wide range of Jewish knowledge, such as basic prayers, blessings, Jewish holidays, Torah traditions and more.
Students with the top scores were invited to spend a Shabbat together in Crown Heights and compete in the final round of JewQ in front of a live audience.
Dix Hills resident Max Kaylakov of The Chai Center Hebrew School was crowned the Sixth-Grade international JewQ champ. Max is a student at Candlewood Middle School in the Half Hollow Hills Central School District.
Other winners of the contest were Tamar Cohen representing the Chabad Hebrew School of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, in the third-grade division; Leah Ada Klein representing Chabad of Niagara Falls, Ontario, in the fourth-grade division; and Julia Berger from the Chabad of Port Washington Hebrew School in Port Washington, in the fifth-grade division.
“It is incredible to see the vast amount of knowledge Max and all the children learned in a few short months,” said Rabbi Dovid Weinbaum, youth director of The Chai Center. “My hope is this will inspire them to want to learn more about Judaism and the world around them.”
All the major religious traditions at their core espouse love, forgiveness and respect.
By Fr. Francis Pizzarelli
Father Frank Pizzarelli
Over the last few weeks we have read much about racism, bigotry and discrimination that continues to infect our social landscape. We have also seen the double standard when it comes to holding people accountable for the poor choices they have made.
Accountability seems to be a concept sadly missing in our civil discourse. Freedom of speech is a basic human right guaranteed by our Constitution. However, that right does not allow people to publicly disrespect and degrade others because we disagree with them.
Let’s take a moment and reflect on the social rhetoric that is infecting our civil discourse on a regular basis. Some feel that they have the right to say and do whatever they want even if it’s at the expense of someone’s character and integrity grounded in no fact or reality.
It becomes increasingly difficult to hold people accountable when those who lead us on both sides of the aisle live with a double standard; when our religious leaders live by a double standard. We have the right to hold any opinion we wish. We do not have the right to impose our opinion on others or demean them if we disagree. Basic human respect for the dignity of every person seems to be buried in the rubble of hateful speech and countless people making excuses for that hatefulness.
All the major religious traditions at their core espouse love, forgiveness and respect. It is unacceptable to use religion as a manipulative tool to justify basic hate, discrimination and bigotry. Our religious community has to move beyond their silence and speak to the issue of respect for all people, no matter what their social and/or political circumstance.
In early September a few years ago, a Jewish family was celebrating a Jewish holy day. The public schools in the community were closed to respect and honor the Jewish community. The family came home from temple and found a white swastika painted on their driveway. Needless to say, they were devastated.
Upon investigation, local law enforcement discovered that two Christian eighth-grade boys who were classmates of the boy who was a member of this family painted that hateful symbol on their driveway. Those young men did not know that the boy’s grandmother lived with them and that she was a survivor of the Holocaust.
Law enforcement took the two boys responsible for this horrific act, arrested them and charged them with a hate crime. The two boys were friends with the Jewish boy whose home they violated with that horrific symbol.
Unfortunately, that hateful act polarized that small community. Some felt people overreacted to a childish prank, stating boys were boys just playing around with no harm or disrespect intended. Others felt people minimized the severity of that act of hate and felt the young men should be held fully accountable for their reckless decision-making.
The victimized family, especially the Holocaust survivor, did not want to prosecute the guilty boys, but they did want them to be held accountable and helped to understand how profoundly hurtful their prank was.
After many conversations back and forth with law enforcement and the local school officials, the elderly Holocaust survivor suggested that the boys apologize before her temple community and participate in a full school assembly on the need for respect and tolerance of people from every walk of life and at that assembly apologize for being so hurtful.
The boys agreed. The charges were dropped and what was once a hateful act became an opportunity to learn a real-life lesson about respect, tolerance and accountability.
Fr. Pizzarelli, SMM, LCSW-R, ACSW, DCSW, is the director of Hope House Ministries in Port Jefferson.
Described as a man who has devoted his time to the community and his faith, John McNamara was genuinely surprised when he received the news from the Friends of St. Patrick organization that he was chosen to be the grand marshal of the 69th Miller Place-Rocky Point St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
“I was shocked and pleasantly surprised,” he said.
McNamara and his wife, Kathy, have lived in Rocky Point since 1978 where they raised four children: Erin, John, Mark and Kathleen, and now the couple has six grandchildren. He has been involved over the years with the St. Louis de Montfort Church in Sound Beach in teaching and ministry. He is also involved in his local parishes, namely St. Anthony of Padua Church in Rocky Point and St. Mark’s Parish in Shoreham where he has been a youth minister since 1979. He also taught at Maria Regina High School in Uniondale.
Scene from the Miller Place-Rocky Point Friends of St. Patrick’s parade. File Photo by Bob Savage
The Rocky Point resident acknowledged that being named the grand marshal is a great honor, and he is excited to be a part of the parade and for his family to be there as well.
“When I told my family the news, they were very happy and surprised — just like I was,”
he said.
McNamara is excited for his grandchildren to be a part of the festivities as they carry banners along the parade route.
On March 17, McNamara will lead the nearly three-mile march down Route 25A. He said theparade is a way of thanking the community for all they do.
Ray O’Sullivan, secretary for the Friends of St. Patrick has known McNamara for most of his life through the St. Louis de Montfort Church.
“He is a good man — a holy man,” he said. “We came to the decision to name John the grand marshal this year.”
O’Sullivan said McNamara is well-known for serving the community and that generations of people know him through his work in
the churches.
This year’s Miller Place-Rocky Point Parade will also honor James O’Sullivan, who passed away in January, 2017. He was a former president of Friends of St. Patrick and was a member of the organization for over 60 years.
“Jimmy was a great fellow,” McNamara said. “He was a great guy and a caring man who loved helping the community. His sons are members of the organization and continue to do his work.”
O’Sullivan said that his father was the Grand Marshal of the 1965 parade and held every position in the Friends of St. Patrick’s organization. He would work hours before the parade started to make sure everything was ready to go.
“He gave everything to the organization,” O’Sullivan said. “The parade meant everything to my dad because of his heritage,”
Ray’s father came to the United States from Ireland in the mid 1950s and his uncle John Sullivan started the parade in 1950.
“He is a good man — a holy man.”
— Ray O’Sullivan
“Miller Place and Rocky Point was his adopted home, and he wanted to serve the community,” O’Sullivan said.
The Rocky Point High School Marching Band, the Patriot Brass Ensemble and the Colonial Fife and Drum are just a handful of groups that will be participating in this year’s parade
The Friends of St. Patrick will also host a Luck of the Irish Casino Night, March 8 from 7 to 11 p.m. at The East Wind resort in Wading River. The casino night will serve as the main fundraiser for the parade. The queen and her court for the Rocky Point-Miller Place St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be crowned, and the grand marshal formally introduced at the event as well. There will be a buffet dinner and an open bar. Tickets are $75 per person. For more information on the event visit
www.friendsofstpatrick.org.
From left: Dimitris Gkinos, Father Demetrios Calogredes, Christos Palaioxaris, Dragomir Djekic in the process of painting the chapel. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
Iconography painted for the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson. Photo by Kyle Barr
The figures painted on the walls and ceiling of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson inevitably draw the eyes up, ever up, past the icons of saints and religious figures to the top of the dome several stories from the floor, up to Greek letters surrounding an image of Jesus looking directly down on the pews below.
Religious images and iconography glow in the soft light, which streams down from the apex of the chapel, images that, having started more than a decade ago, have been finally finished after years of painstaking work.
Between the scaffolding used by the artists who were finishing up their work, images of St. Haralambos, the Nativity of the Theotokos, the baptism and the entrance of the Virgin Mary all adorn the walls, painted on fabric that is adhered to the wall, the kind of sight those of the 6th century must have had on the walls of now-ancient Byzantine churches.
High above the nave’s pews, only a few spots needed to be completed by Feb. 21: a handful of arches above the towering windows and the finishing of some icons. By the weekend, the chapel was completed.
“Although it’s very tedious work, I derive satisfaction in putting up works of art that are immortal and will be present for many years.”
—Dimitris Gkinos
“I’m delighted to put on canvas the life of Christ and the saints, and it’s very enjoyable and rewarding,” said iconographer Dimitris Gkinos. He and most of the other painters, who work for the Greek iconography company, Alevizakis Icons, only speak a little English, but their words were translated by Father Demetrios “Jim” Calogredes, who has seen the iconography go up since he came to the church in 2009.
The iconographers hired to finish the chapel’s paintings are a mix of artists from all over, including the U.S. and Serbia, but mostly Greece.
“I am from Serbia, and I wanted to become an artist and then an iconographer,” said Dragomir Djekic. “I finished college in Belgrade, Serbia — that’s the university in the capital city — then when I came to the United States, I found other iconographers and started to work.”
The paintings that now adorn the walls and ceiling of the chapel have been in the works since 2002, when the old Greek Orthodox church on Sheep Pasture Road was replaced by the one currently standing. Calogredes said watching the whole project finally come together was long, but worth it in the end. The classic images that now surround the chapel walls are well known to the priest, who is able to read off the stories as if they came straight from the Bible.
The priest said the chapel is based on the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, which was built by the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, in the 6th century. That church now exists as a museum in Istanbul, but its re-creation in America is finally coming together with the finishing of the iconography.
“I derive the greatest satisfaction depicting the icon of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child,” said iconographer Christos Palaioxaris, his words translated by Calogredes. “That icon is in the holy mountain in Greece, Mount Athos.”
The work is part religiosity and art, a job that is at times monotonous in getting every detail of the icons right but, in other ways, soul touching.
“Although it’s very tedious work, I derive satisfaction in putting up works of art that are immortal and will be present for many years,” Gkinos said.
A STORY OF RESISTANCE: From left, actors Julia Lewenfisz-Gorka, Wojciech Zielinski and Marta Ormaniec portray Ora, Abraham and Luba Lewin in a ghetto street scene from the film.
Photo by Anna Wloch/Katahdin Productions
By Donna Newman
“History is written by the victors” is a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill. Some allege that history is written by the survivors. In at least one unique case, however, history was written by people who were neither victors nor survivors. During the Holocaust of World War II, a historical record was assembled by a group of doomed Polish Jews with only one goal: to let the truth be known.
Actor Wojciech Zielinski as Oyneg Shabes member Abraham Lewin. Photo by Anna Wloch
As designated by the United Nations in 2005, International Holocaust Remembrance Day has been observed each year since on Jan. 27 — the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp. On that date this year, the world can see the global premiere of a new documentary, “Who Will Write Our History,” detailing the trove of evidence regarding life, atrocities and death within the Warsaw Ghetto, as compiled and buried before the ghetto’s destruction by Jewish inmates who were imprisoned there.
As part of an international event, the film will screen simultaneously at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. These are just three of the more than 250 venues in 41 countries around the world taking part in this unprecedented event, with more joining daily.
Here in Suffolk County, the film may only be viewed at North Shore Jewish Center, 385 Old Town Road, Port Jefferson Station, at 3:30 p.m. The suggested donation is $10 per person. Call 631-928-3737 to RSVP.
“Who Will Write Our History” is a documentary film based on a book by the same name written by Trinity College Professor Samuel Kassow who was born in 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany. The film was written, produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Roberta Grossman; the executive producer is Nancy Spielberg.
Men praying in Warsaw Ghetto in a scene from the film.
Both book and documentary tell the story of the secret society — code named Oyneg Shabes, or joy of the Sabbath — composed of journalists, scholars and community leaders who were among the 450,000 Jews confined to the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest in Nazi-occupied Europe, beginning in November 1940.
The website for the documentary introduces the film: “‘Who Will Write Our History’ is a story of resistance. It is a story about who gets to tell the story. It is about a group of spiritual resistors who risked their lives so that the truth would survive, even if they did not.”
Leading this band of resistance fighters was historian Emanuel Ringelblum, who masterminded“one of the most astonishing research projects in human history” according to Culture.pl, a government-sponsored website funded by Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
The archive that Ringelblum’s team of about 50 to 60 individuals assembled contains approximately 6,000 documents, written in Yiddish and Polish. Artifacts also collected include newspapers, ration and tram tickets, letters, postcards, leaflets, German orders, theater posters and candy wrappers. Original literary pieces and works of art — drawings, watercolors and cartoons — were also deposited in the archive.
Shortly after the war, the first hidden cache to be unearthed was discovered on Sept. 18, 1946. A second trove was found in 1950. A third stash, which has yet to be located despite a 2003 excavation attempt, is thought to be buried on the grounds of the Chinese embassy in Warsaw.
A Warsaw Ghetto market scene from the film.
North Shore Jewish Center congregants Marsha Belford and her husband, Wlodek Guryn, learned about the documentary last spring at the 2018 Hillel and Jewish Theological Seminary-sponsored Jewish University for a Day held at Stony Brook University.
In a plenary session, not only did Grossman talk about and show a clip of the film, which was then in production, but Dr. Eleonora Bergman ofthe Ringelblum Archive also spoke.
“Bringing this documentary to our synagogue started with my husband’s friendship with Eleonora Bergman, who is also a Polish Jew and who grew up on the same street in Warsaw as he did,” said Belford in a recent interview. “Dr. Bergman served as director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw [2007-2011] and is still very much involved with the Ringelblum Archive.”
For her extensive work, Bergman received the French Légion d’Honneur in 2012. She and Prof. Tadeusz Epsztein shared the 2017 Jan Karski and Pola Nireneka Prize, awarded by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research for their work coordinating the publication of the Ringelblum Archive.
Belford patiently awaited the film’s release because she appreciates Holocaust testimonies for very personal reasons. “My husband’s parents escaped Pinsk and survived the war as Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union,” she said. “Originally from Hungary, my mother — whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis — was a survivor of the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.”
Members of the cast
When Belford learned that the documentary would be shown at the U.N. as part of its International Holocaust Remembrance Week observances and also at the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County in Glen Cove — but nowhere in Suffolk County — she contacted the organizer of NSJC’s annual Jewish film festival, Robin Appel.
Belford is grateful to Appel for her expertise and assistance in obtaining the film. “It was Robin who handled all the negotiations that made the NSJC screening possible,” she said.
North Shore Jewish Center Rabbi Aaron Bensen is delighted to offer the community a chance to see this important film.
“I am tremendously proud to be hosting this screening,” said Benson. “We’ve held an annual Jewish film festival for a decade now, thanks to a team that researches and selects excellent Jewish, Israeli and Holocaust-themed films. Bringing ‘Who Will Write Our History’ to the area is a major accomplishment for the group.”
“We’re also happy to be partnering with Temple Isaiah [in Stony Brook] as sponsors,” he added, “since it is a wonderful opportunity to engage a broader audience on this important topic.”
After the war, Rachel Auerbach — one of only three members of Oyneg Shabes to survive — noted the importance of informing the wider world: “We wrote, collected, guarded and hid while in the circumstances of our own destruction. We prepared the register of our own suffering and death, not for ourselves, but for other Jews. For the Jewish community of the wide world.”
Thanks to Auerbach and her courageous cohorts, that perspective will reach the eyes and ears of Suffolk County and beyond Jan. 27 via the film “Who Will Write Our History.”
Mary Speers says goodbye to a congregant of Setauket Presbyterian Church. Photo from Facebook
As the congregants of Setauket Presbyterian Church look to the future, one pastor has her mind on retirement.
The Rev. Mary Speers, 65, who pastored at the church for nearly six years, said her last sermon in Setauket Nov. 30. Temporarily taking over the role as interim pastor is Kate Jones Calone who is known for her work with the Open Door Exchange, an outreach program of the church created to collect furniture to distribute to those in need.
After members of Setauket Presbyterian conducted its most recent mission study and put together a five-year plan, Speers started asking herself if she wanted to work another five years, considering she was thinking of retiring in May when she turns 66.
The Rev. Mary Speers, left holding dog, at a past Christmas Eve Manger Service at Setauket Presbyterian Church. Photo from Mary Speers
The reverend said she was already researching houses in Baltimore. Speers said she wished to move there due to a lot of social justice work needing to be done in the city, along with her love for small-city life. The pastor said if she bought a home before she retired, she could rent it out.
When she decided it would be best for Setauket Presbyterian church members to find someone who would be there for the long haul, she called the Presbytery office in Maryland to see if there were any churches looking for an interim pastor. She said soon after her request, she received a call that congregants of a church in the city were looking for someone. Around the same time, her real estate agent found a home for her.
She said the church members of Setauket Presbyterian understood her need to move as soon as possible and for the small Maryland church’s need for a pastor after theirs left in July 2018.
“They said, ‘You know what, why don’t you let them have a pastor for Advent,’” she said. “‘We’ll be fine.’ That was really sweet of them.”
Speers said she’ll miss pastoring at Setauket Presbyterian Church, where she described the congregants as “putting feet on faith.”
“The congregation is absolutely wonderful,” she said. “They are so involved in the running of the place.”
The pastor said after working and living in Setauket since February of 2013, in addition to the church members, she will miss her time in the Three Village area where she kayaked and picked beach plums at West Meadow Beach, with which she made jam.
Debra Dwyer, an elder with the church, said she switched churches three years ago and credits Speers with her becoming a member of Setauket Presbyterian. She described the pastor as strong and passionate.
Dwyer said she and one of her daughters Emily visited the church on one Youth Mission Sunday during which young church members reported about their recent mission trip to Washington, D.C., to work with the homeless. Based on that visit, Dwyer and her daughter came back one day when Speers was preaching.
“She preached on social issues,” the church elder said. “She applied the bible and scripture in a way that I was so impressed. What she was able to do was get a message out that was truly Christian and that was truly socially just in a way that was not controversial so that everyone could hear it.”
While Dwyer will miss Speers, she said she admires Jones Calone for her peace and justice missions and looks forward to her pastoring.
“For us, this is just a family member getting promoted,” she said.
Speers said she knows Jones Calone will do great in her role as interim pastor because she knows the church’s dynamics.
“She has a great head on her shoulder,” she said. “She’s very pastoral, but she also has excellent boundaries.”
The members of Setauket Presyterian Church welcomed interim pastor Kate Jones Calone with a cake. Photo by Sandy Bond
Jones Calone, 44, who is a wife and mother of three children ranging in age from 7 to 13, has been involved in the church since 2011 when she started as an assistant pastor. She was in the role for nearly five years, and during that time, launched and became the director of Open Door Exchange.
“I’m incredibly so grateful and excited to be serving Setauket Presbyterian Church in this point in the life of the congregation,” she said.
During this transitional time, she said she is excited to help the congregants, whom she described as loving and dedicated, with their plans, which include figuring out how to help people connect with their faith in new ways. She said the church will continue its mission to learn how they can be good stewards of the funds they receive.
In addition to running the Open Door Exchange, every Wednesday the church members volunteer at Welcome Friends Soup Kitchen in Port Jefferson, which serves hot, homemade meals with volunteers from several area churches.
Jones Calone, who officially became interim pastor Jan. 9, said Speers will be missed, and she always appreciated her support when Open Door Exchange was initiated.
“Mary brought a real creativity in her leadership in a lot of different ways, including worship, and I always appreciated that,” Jones Calone said. “I also think about how I really appreciated when we came to her and said, ‘We have this idea for starting this new outreach program.’ She never hesitated and said, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s figure out a way to make this happen, what kind of support do you need.’”
The boys lunge for the cross. Photo by Gerard Romano
Father Demetrios Calogredes of the PJ Orthodox Church throws the cross into the harbor. Photo by Gerard Romano
Three boys race after the cross as it lands in the water. Photo by Gerard Romano
George Franks, mount sinai resident, reached the cross first. Photo by Gerard Romano
Father Demetrios Calogredes of the PJ Orthodox Church throws the cross into the harbor. Photo by Gerard Romano
The Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption in Port Jefferson hosted its annual celebration of Epiphany at Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai Jan. 6 by once again sending eager young adults through chilling waters to reach a cross thrown into the waters celebrating the Orthodox religious holiday.
While three young men lunged for the cross, 14-year-old George Franks came up in the shallow waters holding the cross aloft. An ambulance awaited the chilled participants to warm them up directly afterward.
Father Demetrios Calogredes, who performed the day’s ceremonies, said the ceremony which celebrates the story of Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River, has been held since the church’s founding in 1959. The blessing is done for all forms of travel, whether by car, plane or boat, to ensure safe
journeys.
Photos clockwise from top: the three young men dash after the cross; Calogredes throws the cross into Mount Sinai Harbor; Mount Sinai resident George Franks holds up hand in triumph, and he stands holding the cross.
St. James R.C. Church, 429 Route 25A, Setauket invites the community to experience the beauty and wonder of its traditional Neopolitan Nativity scenes, courtesy of Rev. Gerald Cestare, every day through Jan. 13 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (except Christmas Eve/Day and New Year’s Eve).
Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this year’s display, located once again in the Parish Center, contains thousands of figures, buildings and miniatures; even if you have seen this display in the past, there is always something new! Fr. Jerry invites everyone to share in this wonderful depiction of the true gift of Christmas, a tradition handed down to him from his grandfather. Free event. Call 631-941-4141.
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