by | Mar 29, 2019 1:04 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo; inset: jewishveg.org
Jeffrey Spitz Cohan at WNHH FM; organization logo.
Jeffrey Spitz Cohan has an idea for how to enjoy the upcoming Passover seder in true Jewish tradition — avoiding not just leavened bread, but meat, eggs and dairy as well. And lovin’ it.
by | Mar 8, 2019 8:45 am | Comments (5)
Christopher Peak Photo
Mila Nishball, 97, who fled Czechoslovakia after the Nazi occupation.
As a child growing up near Prague, Mila Nishball saw her weekly trips to the synagogue as a chance to gab with her girlfriends rather than to participate in her family’s religious tradition.
But today, Nishball still tears up when she recalls visiting the site in the late 1980s to discover that the synagogue was gone. It had been torn down by the Nazis after she’d gone into hiding and then fled Czechoslovakia with help from an American-born boy.
by | Feb 26, 2019 1:01 pm | Comments (0)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Hancock heals Jason at Victory Temple.
Elder George Hancock Sr. held out his hands as Assistant Pastor Diane Daniley Langford unscrewed the cap of a bottle of Filippo Berio olive oil and poured a splash on his palms.
by | Feb 21, 2019 6:39 pm | Comments (0)
by | Feb 18, 2019 1:01 pm | Comments (0)
Sam Gurwitt Photo
Pastor Darlene Hayes Daniley at the organ.
That’s why I praise You
I lift You up
And I magnify Your name …
There was no choir raising a joyful noise inside Victory Temple for the Sabbath. No band; just a drum and small Hammond organ. And yet … The rafters shook. The Lord’s name was magnified.
by | Feb 1, 2019 8:31 am | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen Photo
320 Canner St.
Yale’s Karen King updates neighbors.
The Yale Divinity School has decided not to purchase a single-family home near its Prospect Hill campus, citing neighbor concerns about taking $20,000-plus off the city’s annual property tax rolls.
Continue reading ‘Div School Drops Plan To Buy East Rock Home’
by | Jan 30, 2019 3:22 pm | Comments (1)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Trinity sits in the shadow of the forthcoming Audubon Square apartment complex.
A State Street church is spreading its wings just as it is about to get some new neighbors.
by | Jan 22, 2019 8:48 am | Comments (5)
Signs of winter Monday outside the warming center; by day’s end the town opened a second temporary center for families losing heat.
Sam Gurwitt Photos
Eunice Temple-Adams: “They make you feel comfortable.”
(Updated) If it weren’t for the warming center in the basement of Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Evelyn doesn’t know where she would have been Monday. Except out in the deadly cold.
by | Jan 21, 2019 2:01 am | Comments (1)
On Friday afternoon, the 51-member choir on the bima of Congregation B’nai Jacob had just torn through the gospel song “Hallelujah, You’re Worthy” and was now tackling an uptempo version of “We Shall Overcome.” Choir members started with singing and clapping.
Something wasn’t quite working. Angela Clemmons, directing the choir, stopped them.
Continue reading ‘“Gospel Shabbat” Choir Sings Hallelujah For King’
by | Jan 14, 2019 8:44 am | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
A hearse, manufactured in 1888, carries Bishop Stalllings’ body Sunday from Beers Street to Dixwell.
Bishop Robert Henry Stallings Jr.
He was a young pitcher in the Negro Leagues when the New York Yankees came to his door to recruit him.
No way, his father, Bishop Enoch Stallings, of the Church of God and Saints of Christ in the Dwight neighborhood, told the scouts. “This boy is going to sing in the choir.”
by | Jan 7, 2019 8:30 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
King Balthazar on the job.
Mayor Toni Harp officially Friday afternoon greeted King Melchior (aka Joey Rodriguez), one of the Three Kings who arrived at Casa Otonal on Sylvan Street in the Hill to get a jump start on celebrating Three Kings Day.
The holiday marks the arrival of the kings to behold Baby Jesus in Bethlehem— and is also known as Epiphany. (Its official day of celebration was Sunday.)
Continue reading ‘3 Kings Bring Joys and Toys To Casa Otonal’
by | Dec 21, 2018 1:13 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photos
Father Westerberg beside a rendition of the Last Judgment.
Michael Westerberg will preside over Christmas services one last time next week, then step aside after 38 years overseeing the transformation of the Holy Transfiguration.
by | Dec 18, 2018 5:00 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Church facade on East Pearl.
Leaders of the Pentecostal church in the historic 19th-century building on East Pearl Street in Fair Haven need to pave another quadrant of their parking area to accommodate a growing congregation
Area activists and preservationists argued that more trees and plantings should accompany more parishoners.
Continue reading ‘Trees Traded For Asphalt On East Pearl Street’
by | Dec 5, 2018 8:57 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Breen photo
The city menorah on the New Haven Green.
Rabbi Mendy Hecht.
Have the courage to shine a light on what is currently hidden in darkness.
For Orchard Street Shul Rabbi Mendy Hecht, that’s the message at the core of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which started on Sunday night and runs through Monday.
by | Nov 16, 2018 2:12 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
949 Whalley Ave.
Scientology architect Christopher Sanders (right) and project manager Larry Nardecchia pitch plans.
The Church of Scientology of Connecticut got the thumbs up to convert a vacant Westville former furniture warehouse into a place of worship, despite reservations of two neighbors who lambasted the organization for long neglecting the property and spurning the community.
by | Nov 12, 2018 9:01 am | Comments (5)
MOLLY MONTGOMERY PHOTO
Crowd gathered Sunday for a communal prayer event on the Green.
Pastor Todd Foster.
Father, we hear the terms ‘One Nation Indivisible,’ and sadly acknowledge how torn and divided we as a nation are becoming. We sense the widening divide between red and blue, between black and white, between haves and have-nots …
by | Nov 6, 2018 5:14 pm | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
St. Matthew’s Unison Free Will Baptist Church at 400 Dixwell Ave.
St. Matthew’s Church Pastor Kevin Hardy at City Hall on Thursday night.
The city is on its way to renaming a Dixwell Avenue corner after an historic, community-service-oriented local Baptist congregation that dubs itself “the church that cares.”
Continue reading ‘Dixwell Corner To Be Renamed For “Church That Cares”’
by | Nov 5, 2018 1:52 pm | Comments (2)
Paul Bass Photo
Memorial candles lit for Tree of Life Victims, at New Haven’s post-massacre vigil.
Attorney General Sessions,
I am writing to express my deep concern about the way your official statements about the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh erase Jews, anti-Semitism, and white supremacy.
by | Oct 28, 2018 11:59 pm | Comments (4)
Paul Bass Photos
Fatma Antar, the Rev. Bonita Grubbs, and Sergio Rodriguez (at right) at Sunday’s vigil.
Students from Bais Chana Academy and BBYO light candles in memory of the 11 killed in Pittsburgh.
In the face of terror, New Haven stands together.
That message resounded at a local standing-and-sitting-room-only communal vigil held Sunday evening for the 11 Jews massacred by an anti-Semitic gunman during Shabbat services this weekend at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
by | Oct 3, 2018 1:51 pm | Comments (2)
Thomas Breen photo
Varick Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church at the corner of Dixwell and Charles, soon to be renamed “Bishop James Varick Corner.”
Dixwell church founder James Varick.
A streetcorner adjacent to a historic Dixwell church will be named after an early 19th-century Methodist minister who defied racial segregation and founded the congregation.
Continue reading ‘Dixwell Corner Renamed For Church Bicentennial’
by | Sep 20, 2018 8:01 am | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
EDWINS owner Brandon Chrostowski (center) with New Haveners Scott Lewis and Bobby Johnson on Monday night.
When Brandon Chrostowski was 18, he was arrested for drug possession and for running from the police in his home city of Detroit. He could have gotten 10 years behind bars, but a judge sentenced him to probation and no prison time instead.
Now Chrostowski owns and runs a nationally celebrated French restaurant where he teaches the formerly incarcerated to be chefs, waiters, and house managers, extending the second chance that he received decades ago to a population of diligent, aspiring culinary employees just looking for an opportunity to work.
by | Aug 22, 2018 8:02 am | Comments (2)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Vox Church Elder Bob Bergers, organizer of the prayer on the Green.
Church members praying in small groups …
Vox Church New Haven members concluded that city officials are trying everything they can to prevent future mass overdoses on the Green. So they decided to ask for more help from a higher power.
by | Aug 13, 2018 8:01 am | Comments (25)
Thomas Breen photos
Varick Pastor Kelcy Steele at Sabbath services Sunday.
With sweat pouring down his face and the jubilant sound of drums, keyboards, and a hundred pairs of clapping hands before him, Pastor Kelcy Steele revved up one of New Haven’s most influential African-American congregations to make their presence known at the polls this Tuesday.
by | Aug 7, 2018 1:11 pm | Comments (2)
Christopher Peak photo
Feray Gokcek with statue of his hero, Ataturk.
Alders decided not to dip their toes into one well of international controversy on Monday night when they formally turned down a bid to rename a Middletown Avenue streetcorner after modern Turkey’s founding president.
by | Jul 30, 2018 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Carly Wanna Photo
Barry Black in New Haven on Saturday.
U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black claims that we live in a lunatic world — but one in which we can not simply survive, but thrive.