The aftermath of Hurricane Ida
Many Brooklyn houses of worship suffer from heavy fl ooding
COURIER LIFE, SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2021 3
BY BEN BRACHFELD
The fl ooding from Hurricane
Ida has strained Brooklyn’s
houses of worship, with
many sites dealing with severe
water damage — wiping out
many people’s spiritual outlets
amid a traumatic event.
More than a dozen people
died across the city in the massive
deluge. The federal government
issued a “Major Disaster
Declaration” for Brooklyn,
Queens, Staten Island, and the
Bronx, with hundreds of homes
severely damaged. Gov. Kathy
Hochul said over the weekend
that damages are likely far in
excess of $50 million.
In Williamsburg, crews
worked to save treasured Torahs
from a fl ooded basement
at the Sambor Shul on Walton
Street on the night of Sept 1.
Four Sifrei (handwritten) Torahs
were carried out of the
basement at the Satmar synagogue
by crews that included
volunteers with Williamsburg’s
Hatzalah (ambulance), Shomrim
(neighborhood watch), and
Chaverim (mutual aid) networks,
as captured in dramatic
footage.
Williamsburg News reported
that Sambor was fully
cleaned up in time for Shabbos
on Friday night, Sept 4.
Nearby, crews similarly
rescued Sifrei Torahs from the
fl ooded Oir Yisroel Elimeilich
Shul on Wythe Avenue. The
fl oods came just days before
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish
New Year which begat at sundown
Monday night. Neither
Sambor Shul nor the Satmar
Headquarters could be reached
for comment.
Many of the borough’s
mosques also dealt with fl ooding,
right before Friday prayers,
or Jummah, the holiest time of
the week.
Mosaab Sadeia, outreach
coordinator with Majlis Ash-
Shura, the Islamic Leadership
Council of New York, was checking
in with Imams and other
leaders at mosques throughout
the city in the wake of the
storm. Many mosques are in
basements, he said, which were
most at risk of fl ooding in the
storm, and where the bulk of
storm deaths occurred. Masjid
At-Taqwa on Fulton Street saw
its entire basement fl ood, the
mosque posted on Facebook,
and is asking for community
donations to help ameliorate
the damage. A brand new rug
at the mosque was destroyed.
Mosques are often stocked
with religious texts such as the
Quran, and other works like
the Hadith (the words of Muhammad)
or religious scholarly
texts, but for the most part,
material texts aren’t treated
as sacred since the text itself
is so well known, and often recited
from memory. However,
the space of the mosque itself
is considered holy, as a place
where the community comes
together to pray.
“Mosque space being compromised
does make it diffi cult
for people to fulfi ll prayer,” Sadeia
said. “They could fulfi ll it
outside the mosque, obviously.
But the idea that that community
space does get affected, and
it is no longer there and has to be
repaired, and that does have an
effect on the community.”
Sadeia wasn’t expecting immediate
assistance from the
city, owing to the myriad of
other fl ooding issues and infrastructure
challenges that have
plagued the city since Ida, but is
hoping that both public and private
assistance can help bring
mosques back online fully, and
recover fi nancial losses that
congregations suffered as a result
of having to clean up.
Churches bore the brunt as
well. Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
a Catholic Church in Williamsburg
known for holding
the annual Giglio feast, which
returned this summer after a
pandemic hiatus in 2020, saw
its basement fl ooded after Ida, a
spokesperson for the Brooklyn
Diocese said, and had to pump
water from its parish hall and
school building. The Diocese is
working with churches across
Brooklyn and Queens to assist
cleanup efforts.
“The Diocese of Brooklyn’s
facilities management team
will continue to work with the
churches and schools to help
them navigate the recovery process,”
said Brooklyn Diocese
spokesperson John Quaglione.
The fl ooded basement of Masjid Makki in Midwood. Courtesy of Masjid Makki
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