QUEENS— Numerous Catholics from Jamaica, Queens and the surrounding communities gathered at St. Pius the V Church to mark the Ash Wednesday holiday on Feb. 22.

Ash Wednesday is the celebration that begins the season of Lent in which over the course of forty days and forty nights, those who celebrate, repent from their sins and give up something in honor of Jesus.

As the patrons of St. Pius the V filtered into the 7:30 p.m. mass, a low murmur of voices could be heard chatting about their upcoming plans for the seasons and catching up on life since Sunday mass. Once the choir began to sing in Father Felix Sanchez, the chatter dropped and all faced the front of the church.

“I love that St. Pius is always offering celebrations for the holidays and giving a place for members of the community like me to have a safe space to worship. It’s not everyday you see such an open church environment,” said congregant Gloria Valdez.

The community around the church is heavily involved in its successes as many locals partake in the staff such as running the front office that takes phone calls from members and sets children up in Sunday School.

Throughout the Lent season, every Friday, St. Pius the V contemplates the Stations of the Cross at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. mass as a reminder of their faith and what the season is about.

Aside from celebrating Lent, the parish is hosting other events to honor and celebrate the community. A mass dedicated to Black History Month will be held on Feb. 26, with food and celebration after the service.

This church has been in the community for about 110 years and has opened its doors to anyone willing to walk through them.

Due to the diverse area that the church is in, the church offers mass services inEnglish, Portuguese and Spanish

On their website, they include links and descriptions to all the services they offer and how to gain access to them. There is also a resource link out to videos and articles on explanations of different parts of the belief that help understand their mission.

“I’ve been working here for a while and it’s always nice to see new faces and old members come out to these celebrations, it builds community,” said Lee Alves, one of the Directors of Religious Education at the church, who spoke on the importance of the Church for the community.

They also provide a food pantry on every first Wednesday of the month at noon that opens its doors to locals and anyone who is in need to receive what they need. The members of the church can donate food at any time, most often received on Sunday masses.

As the celebrations begin in preparation for Easter, many of the members of St. Pius the V are getting involved in the church to ensure a profound and meaningful season to all congregants.

A coalition of LGBT+, immigrant justice, and reproductive justice groups gathered at City Hall Park to protest on Feb. 24, Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to appoint three pastors who were accused of being “anti-gay” to top positions within the administration.

“Mayor Adams, you will not get away with it. It feels like (the LGBT community) is being policed and targeted,” said National Social Justice Advocate Shéár Avory in response to Mayor Adams.

The three appointees: Eric Salgado, Gilford Monrose, and Fernando Cabrera had said some comments in the past that was deemed offensive and discriminatory towards the LGBT+ community. In 2013, Salgado called abortion and homosexuality a “mortal sin”. Adams appointed him to be assistant commissioner of outreach at the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

In 2014, Cabrera praised Uganda’s ban on same-sex marriage and abortion and claimed that Christians should “take their rightful place” in government to promote their religious views, according to the New York Times. He and Monrose were chosen to work at the newly created Office of Faith-Based and Community partnerships.

About 80 people huddled around a circle in the freezing 35-degree Fahrenheit weather to voice their outrage. Executive Director of New York Pride, Elisa Crespo, shared some concerns about the queer youth within the city.   

“I can’t help but to think about the queer youth who call this city their home, who

tonight may have watched the news and feel a little less a part of the fabric of our city because of these appointments,” said the executive director. “It’s our young people who end up bearing the burden of these anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice appointments.”

Advocates like the National Organizer for Housing Works, Jason Rosenberg, feels like the concerns of the NYC queer citizens are being ignored. The 30-year-old posed a question to the crowd.

“When queer lives are under attack, what do we do?” he asked.

“We stand up and fight back!” the crowd shouted.

A huge standout from the crowd was a gay Trump supporter, holding a pride flag with the words “Gays For Trump.” John McGuigan, a man in his 50’s shared his thoughts about the Mayor.

“It’s time that we all come together in unity. It isn’t right what the mayor is doing,” he said. “A leopard never changes its spots,” he said when asked if he thinks these appointees viewed have changed from their early 2010s comments.

The mayor previously made a statement in response to the community’s pleas that suggested he will likely stay with his picks. He argued that the pastors have evolved and felt like he picked the best people for the job.

New York City faith leaders and homecare workers gathered to support the fight for a wage increase for people who care for the elderly and disabled this Thursday, at the 1199SEIU headquarters in Manhattan.

Anna Couch, a home care worker for 19 years, wants home health aides to be paid what they are worth. As she said in Spanish, “We deserve a permanent salary. We have been working on this for years, and they don’t pay us as they should.” She went on to say, “We have to pay rent, medicines, transportation, and food, and what they are paying us is not enough.”

During the COVID-19 outbreak, the U.S. government increased unemployment and gave taxpayers stimulus checks; some companies gave bonuses to their workers to thank them for their work during the challenging time.

Although this money prevented much hardship, Couch demands something more. “We want to be included in this year’s budget. So, we are asking for $20 or more per hour so that we can be calmer about paying for a roof,” said Couch, who at the moment makes $15 per hour, the minimum wage in New York City.

In every religion caring for one another is one of the strongest pillars. NYC clergy members showed their support through prayers and blessings. “I’m here to support you financially and spiritually,” were the words of community activist and Imam Shahbaz Ahmad Chishti, an Islamic prayer leader. 

Executive Director at New York State Council of Churches, the Reverend Peter Cook, said that his parents were at an age where they needed assistive care. “They want to stay in their homes. But when the very people who can make this path possible are not paid a living wage, it’s an injustice to our parents and to the people who care for them,” said Rev. Cook.

Rabbi Guy Austrian addressed an emotional prayer to the workers. “We ask your blessing on those in need of care and on those who give care,” Austrian said as he finished his prayer.

These community activists and workers also addressed words to New York State’s first female governor, Kathy Hochul. “We are all women here, mostly women of color. So how could you stand up to be proud to be the first governor of New York who is a woman and not fund fair pay for homeworkers?” said Bobbie Sackman, campaign leader at N.Y. Caring Majority.

“One of these days, it will be her turn, and she’ll need us. So, I hope she thinks this through and keeps it in the back of her mind,” said Couch.

The national debate over immigration was inescapable at the closing ceremony of New-York Historical Society’s exhibit commemorating the first Jewish Americans as a 16th-century manuscript written by a persecuted Jew became a symbol of solidarity between the United States and Mexico.

The manuscript, written in colonial Mexico, had been lost for over eight decades and was found earlier this year in Manhattan. After being a part of the exhibit titled “The First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World,” it will now be returning to Mexico, “where it belongs,” said Ambassador Diego Gómez Pickering, Mexico’s consul general in New York.

“It’s coming back to the Mexican Jewish community,” Pickering said at Tuesday’s ceremony, “and it’s going across the border, a border that, in culture and understanding, will never be closed.”

Pickering was met with enthusiastic applause from everyone there to celebrate the early immigrants, who had fled from Europe and established communities in both North and South America.

The artifact, considered the earliest surviving worship account of coming to the New World, is the diary of Luis de Carvajal the Younger, a Jewish man who lived in New Spain (now Mexico). To avoid punishment imposed by the Inquisition, which followed believers to the New World, De Carvajal claimed to be Catholic. In 1590, his true faith was discovered and he was captured. During his imprisonment, he began writing his memoir, which largely focused on his faith.

De Carvajal was ultimately burned at the stake, along with other members of his family. His manuscript was saved and found its way to Mexico’s National Archives, only to mysteriously disappear in the 1930s.

New York City became a part of the narrative when Leonard Milberg, a New Yorker and collector of Judaica, came across the manuscript in a catalog at Swann Galleries in Manhattan. Thanks to Milberg, experts studied the artifact and confirmed its authenticity. After financing the purchase, Milberg made a deal with Pickering: the manuscript would return to Mexico after a being a part of the exhibit in New York.

“We value the effort and dedication to build bridges between the Mexican and the Latino communities and the Jewish community here in New York City,” Pickering said of Milberg and the groups that collaborated with the museum, including AJC NY, part of a global Jewish advocacy group.

The exhibit was a celebration of the men and women who sought freedom in the New World. As a result, there were many allusions to current anti-immigration sentiment in a room filled with rare paintings, portraits, maps, books and artifacts that showed a world of different cultures and traditions coming together in a new land.

“America, as is often said, is a nation of immigrants,” Louise Mirrer, president and chief executive officer of the New-York Historical Society, said during the ceremony. “And these days, we cannot say that enough.”

The exhibit runs through March 12.

Photo: Diego Gómez Pickering, Mexico’s consul general in New York, hails the return of an important historical manuscript to Mexico. (Linda Krestanova)

On a cold and windy Friday night in Brooklyn, about 140 18-to 35-year-olds piled into Christian Cultural Center’s young adult lecture hall to hear their pastor speak. The dimly lit room, styled similarly to a lounge with stadium-like seating, was ablaze with chatter.

On stage a live band played electrifying gospel sounds and the large flat screen monitors surrounding the room showed images of young teens doing different styles of dance ranging from fraternity-style stepping to breakdancing. The message emblazoned on the wall: “Be intentional about how you will influence the world by making lasting decisions every chance you get.”

Pastor A.R. Bernard, founder of the East New York megachurch had gathered some of the millennials in his congregation to engage them in an open forum session titled “Real Talk – Millennials of Faith.” It was a meeting that, perhaps by chance, coincides with the release of the Pew Research Center’s latest statistics on the changing religious landscape in America that show that an increasing portion of the U.S. population is moving away from organized religion and now identifying as religious “none.” According to the findings, millennials are driving the growth of this group.

“It is said that millennials are more accepting of the social changes in society. Is this also true of millennials of faith?” Bernard asked the group.

“I don’t force my beliefs on anyone,” one young woman in the audience responded. “I live out my life according to the Bible, but I don’t go around preaching to people or pushing the Bible in their face or telling them their lifestyle is wrong.” Bernard nodded slowly as if contemplating her response.

The group spent the next 90 minutes discussing a wide range of issues from racism to transsexuality and the struggle to maintain a Christian identity in an increasingly secular society.

“More and more, millennials are making the distinction between being spiritual and being religious,” Bernard said. “What they’re saying is they are divorcing themselves from organized religion and the institution of the church but they still want to think they have a relationship with God.”

The religious “nones,” as the Pew Research Center labels them, includes both the “spiritual but religious” as well as those who self-identify as atheists and agnostics.

While there are a number of reasons as to why the “nones” are growing, the authors of the center’s report say generational replacement plays a significant role. This is evident in the steady decline in the number of people who identify religion as important to their lives as the each new generation emerges. According to the Pew’s findings, two-thirds of adults in the generation born in the mid 1920s to early 1940s say religion is very important to them and they pray every day as opposed to 6 in 10 Baby Boomers and 5 in 10 Generation Xers.

The millennials show far lower rates of religious involvement with just about four in ten saying religion is important to them. Seven in 10 of the youngest millennials born between 1990 and 1996 with no religious affiliation say religion is not important to them and 42 percent of them say they do not believe in God at all.

Cornelius Sullivan, professor of sociology of religion at Brooklyn College, said he believes there are societal factors that are promoting this attitude.

“Science and our understanding of the universe and the evolution of man create a great deal of doubt in the minds of those who were brought up strictly religious,” Sullivan said. “Then there is the issue of the recent religious violence and conflicts that are causing millennials to question the idea of God.”

Citing societal reasons for his departure from church, Elston Wilson, 30, a college student majoring in accounting, said he grew up in a black Pentecostal church in Brooklyn and attended several times a week with his mother until his late teens. However, upon reaching adulthood, he began to question what he was taught about God.

“There’s ISIS killing people in the name of God, all these racist killings and the Bible promotes slavery, I just don’t know,” Wilson said. “I believe in something. Creation tells me there is a Supreme Being behind it. I just don’t know what to call him.”

Brooklyn College social psychology Professor Curtis Hardin said religious identity is usually bound up in parental relationships and so people are generally more committed to religion to the degree that their parents share that same religious experience and is usually stronger depending on how attached they are to their parents.

“Over the generations, as science and culture have peeled people away from traditional religious faith, there are fewer and fewer traditionally religious parents with whom to share religious experience,” Hardin said. “Put another way, there are more and more non-religious parents who not only do not teach or require children to be religious but who model, reward, and share non-religious views of the world with their children.”

The Pew findings have consistently shown that generations usually become less religious as time goes by and this could mean America is moving toward becoming a more secular society. According to the numbers, the proportions of “nones” who say they do not believe in God has grown significantly. One-third of young adults who previously claimed to be spiritual but not religious now say they do not believe in God, an 11 percent point increase since 2007.

“To me it’s actually more surprising that America’s generational turn away from religion has happened so slowly,” Hardin said. “The U.S. is virtually unique when it comes to religiosity in comparison to other fully developed countries around the globe. Other developed societies outside the Muslim world are vastly more secular and less religious than Americans.”

But Sullivan said this does not necessarily mean religion is weakening
in America. “The “nones” are a very mixed and moveable group in that some who do not affiliate now will affiliate later in their lifetime as they grow older, get married and have children.”

Recognizing the shift from religion, Bernard told his group he is dedicated to creating stronger millennials of faith, who have a strong sense of identity and purpose and who will not run away from their faith when challenged.

One of the ways he plans to accomplish this, he announced, is to convert one of the lecture halls into a black box theater, which will create a space for the young adults to hang out and have fun safely on the weekends.

The group cheered wildly.

“Millennials have flipped the script,” Bernard said. “In previous generations, church meant you fit into it – but now millennials want to know, how does church fit them?”

Following a brutal rape in Canarsie and several other reported rape attempts, the 69th Precinct Clergy Council announced stepped up efforts to combat crime and establish a presence in the community.

The Rev. Cecil Moonsam, president of the clergy council, said there will be an awareness gathering Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. at Rockaway Parkway and Avenue M, where the rape occurred. He outlined the plan during an Oct. 5 meeting of the council at the 69th Precinct station house, saying that clergy members will pass out fliers to residents to inform them of safety measures and various sources of help.

“We just want the community to know we are here for them and to make the streets safer for the women and for everyone,” Moonsam said.

During the monthly meeting at the station house, Community Affairs Officer Eton White said that although crime in the area is down by 10 percent in comparison to this time last year, the rapist was still at large. White said since the rape incident, there have been three reported aggravated rape attempts, all believed to have been perpetrated by the same suspect.

Around midnight on Aug. 30, the rapist allegedly threatened a 19-year-old woman with a gun, pulled her into an alley on Rockaway Parkway, raped her in an abandoned building then fled, police said.

Moonsam, a co-pastor of Restoration Temple Assembly in Canarsie who has been in ministry for more than 35 years, said he became involved with the council to seek a better relationship between clergy, the community and the cops.

As such, the clergy’s mission is to act as a liaison between the community and the police as well as to provide spiritual support for both cops and community as needed. This includes counseling and prayer for families affected by violence as well as spiritual support for officers before they start their daily duties.

The clergy council has held several prayer vigils since the summer of 2014 – a time when gun violence had increased sharply in the 69th Precinct, in comparison to a year prior, according to police reports. There will also be more gatherings at different troubled locations in the neighborhood in the near future, Moonsam said.

Moonsam also announced that the council will increase its efforts to get local churches more involved and so in the coming months will put together packages about the clergy council and its mission and mail them to different houses of worship.

“There are so many churches in Canarsie and they are just not involved enough,” Moonsam said.

In an interview following the meeting, Moonsam said that there are also plans to expand resources in the community by having forums at different houses of worship throughout Canarsie. These meetings, open to the public, will include prayer and spiritual counseling. Officers who work with youth and victims of domestic violence will also be present.

The council meets once monthly at various locations in Canarsie to discuss the latest crime statistics and identify ways in which the community and police can work together to combat crime.

Photo: Members of the 69th Precinct Clergy Council pray in the summer of 2014 at the site of a shooting. (Keciah Bailey)

At the symbolic Independence Hall in Philadelphia and in many other stops during his journey to the United States, Pope Francis called for immigrants to be proud of who they are and urged all Americans to welcome them.

“Never be ashamed of your traditions,” he said in Spanish on Sept. 26 to thousands of people in Independence Park. “Do not forget the lessons you learned from your elders, which is something you can bring to enrich the life of this American land.”

The son of Italian immigrants told immigrants that they bring many gifts to America and that although they have endured many challenges and still struggle to stay in the country, they should be proud of themselves. He said they should “remember obligations as responsible citizens.”

It was not the first time in his trip to the United States that the Argentinian-born pope called out for immigrants to be welcomed. On his first stop, the White House, the 78-year-old pontiff said it was a pleasure to be in a land of immigrants, and pointed out to President Barack Obama and others present that somehow everybody is either an immigrant, or descendant of immigrants. He said, “As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.”

Likewise, among the millions of immigrants looking to the pope to encourage an immigration reform, 5-year-old Sophie Cruz managed herself to jump the barricade in Washington to give a letter to the pontiff asking him to talk to President Obama on her behalf because her father was set to be deported, according to CBS News.

Before Congress, where there is a strong opposition to immigration reform, the pope addressed lawmakers to remind them that they were elected to protect against social injustices.

“We must not be taken back by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best as we can to their situation,” he said of immigrants.

At the United Nations, Francis focused on climate change, but said that he believed the institution was the place to overcome social injustice and incorporate the underprivileged. He said that politicians “shouldn’t turn their back on our neighbors,” and that immigrants should be treated in a “humane, just and fraternal way.”

Photo: Pope Francis arrives in Washington on Sept. 22. (WhiteHouse.gov)

The monk begins his journey before the sun rises, his orange robes swirl by the brisk winds in the empty streets on Sunday morning. At this time, while he waits for a ride to go to the ashram, his thoughts sometimes drift back to the warm and cheery atmosphere of Guyana, his native land.

But as, Swami Shiveswaranda, travels to his place of worship and the sun rises over Flushing, Queens, he snaps back into his life in New York. He sees people driving out of their driveways, pumping fuel into their cars, going grocery shopping, waiting in queue for the bus, and honking their car horns on a not-so crowded Grand Central highway.

The monk steps out of the van and into the large, red brick building. A sign hovers over the double door entrance, in bold orange letters, that says, The America Sevashram Sangha Inc., Jamaica Queens. The adjoined building, once a synagogue is now an ashram, a place where Hindus go to pray and listen to hymns and readings of scriptures from the monk.

Swami Shiveswaranda makes his way to the opulent altar, where he bows and prays. The altar, where holy rituals are performed is an alluring mélange of colors and an overflow of fragrant incenses. It is decorated with candles, vases, marble floors and ceramic statues of Shiva, Vishnu, and Ganesha among other Hindu manifestations of God. The altar is lavished with flowers, garlands and fruits.

The monk, dressed in orange robes proceeds to the sit on a cushion adjacent to both the altar and the congregants. He puts on his black-rimmed glasses, looks around and listens to the bhajans, devotional songs sang in Hindi by the musicians in rhythm with the drum and harmonium.

Day after day, Swami Shiveswaranda, 53, strives to realize God. His duty as a monk ranges from guiding disciples of the ashram to realize God to being a source of solace to help those in difficult times. It has been a long odyssey from being an outstanding college student in Guyana on his way to medical school to the temple in Queens. But it is all part of his spiritual journey.

It has taken Swami Shiveswaranda 27 years to earn the title of a monk. He has spent his first three years in the ashram. He has then spent ten years as a Bramacharya, one who takes the vow of celibacy in thoughts, words and deeds to attain self-realization. He has spent 14 years living in Cove and John ashram in Guyana before going to Calcutta, India to take an oral exam to achieve the spiritual stage of a monk. He came to the U.S. 11 years ago.

*                        *                        *

Moments later, he is introduced as, ‘His Holiness Swami Shiveswarandaji’ to give the day’s reading. He begins his pravachan, which is a combination of lectures on scriptures taken from the Ramayana, one of the two great epics of Hinduism depicting the duties of relationships and portraying ideal characters. His pravachan is based on the acceptance of death.

“Death is hard to take in. It is the reality of life in this world,” Swami Shiveswaranda said to the congregation comprised of almost 50 people including men, women and children of all ages.

“Life is a series of joys, great joys and deep sorrows,” Swami Shiveswaranda he said. Shiveswaranda is referred to as Swami, because he has undertaken the lifetime vow after spending so many years in the ashram. His orange robe symbolizes this vow.

A monk’s vow forbids him from: owning personal properties, eating for pleasure, possessing money, and maintaining personal relationships. Now, he resides in New York where the circumstances are different from his homeland.

Swami Shiveswaranda is not just a sanyasi, a monk who has given up all worldly pleasures and broken all family ties. He has given up his academic goals to live the life of asceticism and risen to the challenges of being a monk in New York.

“There are times when I greatly miss Guyana. The people are more accepting and respectful,” said Swami Shiveswaranda in a soothing tone. The people in New York are respectful and accepting also but they are prone to question everything.

“Once, at the ashram, a father told his eight year old son to bow at the altar, but the boy, asked him why?” continued Swami Shiveswaranda. From young, kids learn to ask questions and reject anything blindly, which is a good thing.

Swami Shiveswaranda talked a little about his family. He has taken the sacred vow, which forbids him from spending his free time with his family. However, he attends religious functions when his brother, sister, niece or nephew celebrate an anniversary, but he is forbidden to stay overnight at their homes.

“It was hard breaking away from my family,” said Swami Shiveswaranda in calm voice. “It was not an instant decision. I was in periods of indecision and anguish,” he said.

He recalls that his dad was sad and his mother wept when he told them about the life he wanted to lead. Both of his parents expected him to be a doctor.

Swami Shiveswaranda, who was originally known as Bhaskar Ramkissoon, graduated from high school with advanced levels and gone on to the University of Guyana where he graduated with a degree in chemistry and a minor in mathematics. He had been awarded a scholarship to attend medical school in Cuba, but he declined because of his devotion to God and his connection to the ashram, which started from childhood.

“He was a brilliant student at the university,” said Sagar Lachmansing a former colleague who is now the vice president at Aurochemicals in Washingtonville, New York. “He was a focused student,” added Lachmansing, 54.

Instead of going to medical school, he has attained a post-graduate degree in education from the University of Guyana. He has taught chemistry, math and physics at the Hindu College for seven years while he was at the ashram. His support throughout his journey sprouts from his Guru, his teacher, Swami Purnananda who encouraged him to get his degree and take the path to serve mankind.

“A person with a degree would be looked on more favorably,” he recalled his guru telling him.

Swami Shiveswaranda no longer thinks about the decision he has made years ago to lead a monastic life. He has overcome that challenge, he nodded his head and said, “I’m much too old for that. I have gone through that phase.”

Swami Shiveswaranda lives at a temple at Woodside Queens, called Divya Dham House of Worship. The New York Times describes the temple as, “a vast temple complex and living history museum.” The temple features a model of the Himalayas and a man-made cave that houses a shrine. Swami Shiveswaranda is not only a spiritual leader. One of the reasons, he has migrated to the United States is to serve as the head monk of Divya Dham, a temple that takes up half a block. He is responsible for the management of the temple, which is opened to the public every day of the year from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

He lives with four other monks in the temple. “They are there when you are in times of difficulties. They give you strength,” Swami Shiveswaranda said. Also, being in ashram on Sunday mornings with the disciples gives him strength.

“He [Swami Shiveswaranda] is an embodiment of knowledge and humility. We’re blessed to have him in our lives,” said Pramela Bipat, 40. “We learn something new each time we leave from here,” continued Bipat who is an ardent disciple of the ashram.

With what started as pure devotion to god as a young boy growing up in a poor neighborhood, Swami Shiveswaranda has followed his heart and achieved spiritual morality. His journey continues north as he leaves the U.S. to attend a religious ceremony in Canada for a week. “Happiness comes from within the inner state of mind,” he added.

It was a breezy fall night in September when 20-year-old Lorraine Dana was walking to her older sister’s house, ready to enjoy a Jewish new year’s meal with those she loves. She was appreciating the beautiful weather as she waited to cross the street on the corner of Ocean Parkway and Avenue O in Brooklyn when a man in a car stopped, rolled down his window, and began cursing at her.

“Go back to Israel you low-life Jew. Go back to Israel so that Hamas can destroy every last one of you pigs!”  Dana said the man, who wore a turban, yelled at her.

Scared and alone, she crossed quickly only to find that the car was following her.

“Because it was Rosh Hashanah I didn’t have my phone on me,” she said. “I couldn’t call the police or anyone for help. I was shaking. It was dark and there weren’t many cars on the street at the time. I was scared for my life.”

Dana realized the smart thing to do would be to run down a one-way street since the man in his car would not be able to follow her there. She ran as fast as she could, hid behind a car and watched as the man made a U-turn. Before he drove off the man yelled, “You will get it one day! Every last one of you!”

Over the past year, the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict  in the Middle East has led to more such vitriol on the streets of Brooklyn and other places around the world where Jews and Muslims mingle. The discovery that three Israeli teens were abducted and murdered by members of Hamas; the rockets Hamas fired into Israel from Gaza; the invasion of Gaza that Israel launched in response: All these events sharpened emotions. Anti-Semitic crimes in New York increased sharply, as did bias crimes aimed at Muslims.

Anti-Semitism is a word that describes hostility towards the Jewish people. It was coined by Wilhelm Marr in Berlin in 1879. “Marr invented this word when he was an unemployed journalist,” said Robert Shapiro, a professor of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College. “He wanted to make a name for opposing Jews, hating Jews, and accusing Jews for all kinds of terrible things but not on a religious basis. So, he decided it should be racist. Since Jews by definition are not `white’–they’re Semites–anything the Jewish people were involved in was considered ‘Semitic.’”

Nearly two-thirds of the  the anti-religious hate crimes reported nationally are against Jews, according to the FBI data for 2012, the most recent year available. In New York,  the  Police Department reports that hate crimes against Jewish people increased as of Sept. 17 from 64 to 89 over the previous year, and from 7 to 17 for Muslims. Assaults against Jews more than doubled from three to eight, and assaults against Muslims shot up from one to six.

According to a study by the Jewish Community Relations Council, as of Sept. 18, 40 percent of all reported hate crimes in the city were anti-Semitic. The study, based on police data, noted that anti-Muslim attacks rose dramatically in 2014, which coincides with ISIS becoming a major news story during July and August. Anti-Muslim incidents made up 8 percent of the reported hate crimes as of Sept. 18. and had increased 143 percent over the previous year. Overall, police counted 17 percent more hate crimes citywide than for the same period in 2013.

The Islamic Center of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn was attacked twice during a July weekend. On Friday, July 18, eggs were thrown at elderly worshipers from a group riding by in a car near the mosque. The people of the mosque were attacked again on Sunday when a group of cars displaying Israeli flags circled the mosque as the passengers yelled anti-Islamic slurs.

Police detectives probed anti-Muslim attacks that targeted several mosques, leaving them defaced with slurs.

Similarly in August, as the tensions were high and getting higher in the Middle East, there was an incident that occurred on the streets of Manhattan. Several cars  displaying Palestinian flags were stuck in traffic on 63rd Street  when the people inside the vehicles noticed a man wearing a yarmulke and a woman sitting beside him. At this moment, some anti-Semitic remarks were yelled at the couple. Eventually, one of the men threw a water bottle at the Jewish woman, while another man got out of his car and punched the Jewish man in the side of his head, witnesses told the police.

In late October and early November, Jewish people became the central victims of the “knockout” game,  the name for assaults in which an assailant attempts to knock out an unsuspecting victim, often with a single sucker punch, all for the amusement of the attacker and accomplices.

A 34-year-old Jewish mother of two, who asked not to be identified, said she experienced this on a shopping trip to Brooklyn’s Kings Plaza Mall in October.

Returning to her car  in the mall parking lot, she was confronted by three teenagers.

“Out of nowhere these three boys started yelling out racist comments,” she said. “I was the only one around so I knew these anti-Jewish comments were meant for me. They were using such vulgar language it made me turn my head around to see who these people were.”

The woman said that she didn’t know how they knew she was a Jewish woman or why they were screaming at her that way. “I am a trainer and since I came straight from work, I was wearing sweatpants, my leather jacket and my favorite big scarf. I had nothing of value on me,” she said. “I wasn’t even carrying my bag. I didn’t know why they wanted to start with.”

She opened the door to the parking lot and started heading for her car when she noticed it got very silent.

“It was so quiet you would have been able to hear a pin drop. At that moment I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I looked in back of me and I saw those boys were gone, but still something didn’t feel right. I thought to myself, if my intuition is correct and these boys are following me and are ready to attack, if I lead them to my car, that’s it I’m automatically done for.”

She decided the best thing to do was for her to turn around, head back into the mall, and get a security guard to walk her to her car. At the instant she turned around, she was punched so hard in the face that she was knocked to the ground.

“I had a laceration in my head, a broken nose and bruised ribs. When I got back up, I’m not sure how long I was knocked out for, I couldn’t think, the world was spinning,” the woman said. “I looked around to see if those boys were still there but they weren’t. Could their purpose really have been just to punch me in the face and leave?”

Since she was one of the first victims of these attacks, there was no explanation for what had happened that day. She went to the 63rd Precinct to file a report. The police took her back to the place where she had been attacked.

“Just arriving at the mall was giving me a panic attack,” she said. “I didn’t think I could do it and the police couldn’t make any sense out of what had happened to me.”

After a few minutes of standing in the spot where she had been knocked out, she began to have a panic attack and had to leave immediately. The woman went through a voice recognition lineup the following week, but to her dismay, had no luck. She was told that there would be cameras added to the parking lot, to ensure customer safety but it has been confirmed by the mall that no cameras have been added.

“I cannot sleep, I cannot go into parking lots, and I have short term memory loss. I have been a physical trainer for many years but now when I teach my classes I need to do it with the book open. Something I never had to do before,” the woman said. “ When my students tell me certain things I tell them, ‘You’re going to have to remind me again soon because I’m going to forget.’ They think I’m joking with them, and truth is, I wish I was, but I am not. It’s a very difficult thing to live with.”

The woman was not the last victim of this cruel “game.” Two weeks later, seven Jewish people in Crown Heights became victims of it. The victims’ ages varied; one was a 12-year-old boy. After this boy was knocked unconscious and pushed across the sidewalk, “the two attackers ran back to their group and yelled ‘We got him!’ and received a roaring cheer,” said the executive director of the Jewish Future Alliance, Rabbi Yaacov Behrman. “These knockouts were not provoked and nothing was taken from the victims. We are extremely disappointed that no arrests have been made in any of these seven incidents.”

One week after this incident, another occurred. This time the attacker, Amrit Marajh, 28, was caught and charged with a hate crime  after he allegedly knocked out a 24-year-old Orthodox Jewish man.

Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R-Glenville) proposed a bill that would classify the knockout game attacks as gang assaults, and would require that youths who participate in such attacks be tried as adults, facing prison terms of up to 25 years.

“These twisted and cowardly thugs are preying on innocent bystanders and they don’t care if the victims are young, old, a man or woman,” Tedisco said when he announced the bill. “Life isn’t a video game. These are real people whose lives are not only being put in jeopardy but in many cases destroyed.”

Among these violent acts of Jewish hate crimes, other forms of anti-Semitism took place as well. Last May, a former police officer, Michael Setiawan, was charged with an anti-Semitic hate crime. The ex-officer was accused of putting vulgar graffiti messages throughout Borough Park, home to a large Orthodox Jewish community. Setiawan allegedly sprayed swastikas and hate-filled words on the walls of a Jewish school, three other buildings and 15 cars.

Another incident similar to this one occurred to 35-year-old Rini Braha. This past spring Braha woke up one Thursday morning and was ready to drive her kids to school when she discovered that the driver’s side of her car was keyed with swastikas. She called the police and Shomrim, a safety patrol in the Jewish community, to report this case.

“You hear about this in the news and you read about these cases in the newspapers but you never think it can happen to you. I felt violated. My car was parked in my driveway, which means that in order to get to my car whoever did this trespassed onto my property,” she said. “My biggest concern was my four children I had inside.”

Shomrim stayed outside Braha’s house for a month to make sure whoever keyed her car would not come back to do anymore damage. They wanted Braha and her children to feel safe again within the confines of their own home.

Braha said this happened around the same time a swastika was spray painted onto the walls one of the community’s synagogues.

The Jewish people called for protection from these acts of hatred. On Sept. 18, a group of 25 city and state lawmakers and Jewish community leaders urged the de Blasio administration to take stronger action to prevent rising anti-Semitic attacks against the Jewish community and to punish the perpetrators. They spoke at a rally held on the steps of City Hall, where they released police data on hate crimes.

Among these leaders were state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn Heights), Michael Miller from the Jewish Community Relations Council, Jeff Leb from the Orthodox Union, Comptroller Scott Stringer, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) and Council members David Greenfield, Mark Treyger,  Stephen Levin and Jumaane Williams, all Brooklyn Democrats.

Tempers continued to flare. On Oct. 7, the head of the Brooklyn Young Men’s Hebrew Association was viciously attacked outside the Barclays Center after a game and celebration honoring the Israel Defense Forces. Leonard Petlakh, 42, was inside the arena with his children and friends for the Nets vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball game, when a group tried to disrupt the event by unfurling the Palestinian flag. Nerdeen Kiswani, the Muslim Hunter College student who was holding the flag, asserted that she was punched in the stomach and that her flag was taken away. A video of the incident shows a man snatch the flag and Kiswani say, “He punched me in the stomach.” But no punch is apparent in the video. Petlakh touted the video as proof that he was not involved in the flag-snatching and that the supposed assault on Kiswani didn’t happen.

Ultimately, security kicked both groups out, and the face-off continued outside, according to police. As Petlakh was walking out with his children, video captured several protesters shouting, “Free Palestine,” and “Your people are murderers.” This is when police say Shawn Schraeder allegedly punched Petlakh, who was taken to New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope for treatment of a broken nose and eight stitches for cuts beneath his eye. Schraeder was charged with  assault and harassment.

Faced with the rising number of hate crimes against Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers, Public Advocate Letitia James announced the creation of a task force to investigate the problem further. Comprised of leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, and other faith communities, it will aim to make short term and long-term policy recommendations to prevent hate crimes in New York, especially those targeting the Jewish and Muslim communities.

“Our city belongs to all New Yorkers regardless of which religion they adhere to or whether they affiliate with any religion at all,” James said when she created the task force on Sept. 23. “We stand united in supporting every community in New York and creating a climate that fosters acceptance. The Public Advocate’s Taskforce on Hate Crimes will examine and advance specific action items to address the rise in hate crimes against Muslim and Jewish New Yorkers.”

James said, “New Yorkers will rise above and come together as we always do.”

Photo, top: Rini Braha’s car was defaced with swastikas, one of a growing number of anti-Semitic crimes in Brooklyn this year.

Pushing a shopping cart filled with loads of laundry below the No. 3 elevated train tracks in Brooklyn’s Brownsville section, Anastacia Stanley recalled the first time she saw Bethesda Healing Center, a church designed in the shape of an ark with its name written in bold green letters. Outside the double doors, a line of people stood, waiting to obtain a hot meal and bags of groceries from the church’s monthly food pantry.

“Bethesda has given back to the community in various ways and I’m happy to be a recipient of the greatness that they offer my community,” said Stanley, an 18-year-old student at New York City College of Technology who is pursuing a fashion marketing degree and a resident of Brownsville, one of the city‘s poorest neighborhoods.

Bethesda Healing Center is one of the many churches in Brownsville, a mostly African- and Caribbean-American community which has 58 churches in 14 denominations, according to Faith-Street, a New York-based organization that helps link people up with a house of worship. A visit to the three churches shows how deeply connected they are to their community, serving as a rock of refuge for many local residents.

In various ways, the three churches on Clarkson Avenue between Remsen Avenue and Rockaway Parkway and others in the neighborhood have played a significant role in efforts to stabilize a troubled community. The churches serve as an incubator for charities, recreation, political organizing, schools and businesses. They have done outreach in hospitals and prisons and donate clothes and food for the indigent.

“People see churches as a refuge both spiritually and physically. They serve as homeless shelters, host soup kitchens and they even take in undocumented immigrants, and politicians use them as platforms to get votes,” said Ken Estey, an assistant professor of political science at Brooklyn College and an expert on religion in Brooklyn.

Gail Gilkes, the dean of B.I.B.L.E. College, which is located in Brownsville, said church leaders go to great lengths to assist the marginalized. “Pastors are known to accompany their parishioners on hospital visits, to court cases, graduations and give support during tragedies,” she said. “They provide family services, promote health and well-being and encourage academic excellence.”

With a population of 55,043, Brownsville, in central Brooklyn, is faced with many social problems associated with poverty, including drug addiction and high levels of crime. The neighborhood still has a disturbing number of shootings despite a drop in the crime rate. Frequently, the shootings take place in or near housing projects. Brownsville has the largest concentration of public housing in the nation, comprising one square mile of public housing.

Residents look to their churches for guidance. “It’s nothing but life-changing truths that is taught here by our bishop Dr. Rose,” said Nicola Paige, 26, a member of Bethesda since childhood. “It’s a place of healing and outpouring of love.” During Christmas and Thanksgiving, members of the community are served with a hot meal and are given free clothes and toys, all donated from the church members and local businesses.

Sandwiched between a laundry and an abandoned, gated church on Clarkson Avenue is All Saints Pentecostal Church. In the process of beginning morning worship on a recent Sunday, congregants intermittently entered the pews.

With fewer than 20 people present, the female pastor, clothed in a white dress accessorized with beading, shouted praise as her short body jolted with each statement she made.

All Saints has been serving the community for over 25 years and has a membership of 35. “I think Brooklyn is God-fearing. We fear God and keep his commandments,” Yvonne Salmon, the director of missions affairs, said with a grin on her face as the background music overpowered her soft-spoken voice.

“What we usually do is go out and invite the people of the community to come,” Salmon said. It is an effort her closely knit church family does to help and give back to the community of Brownsville.

“We sometimes get food from outsiders and we package and give them out, we visit the elderly and find out what we can do for them,” Salmon said.

A couple of doors down from All Saints Pentecostal is Clarkson Avenue Church of God, with a mostly Haitian congregation. Its name is written in bold red letters that are above the entrance to the narrow sanctuary, which was secured by white gates. The loud music and the shouts of the occupants bleed through the doors of the red brick building.

“Our mission is to help the church members and the community to transition, mostly immigrants from Haiti,” said Emma Lapointe, the ministries coordinator. The Clarkson Avenue church has seen a growth spurt in its attendance and membership since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. As a result of that tragedy, a lot of Haitians migrated to the United States.

Clarkson Avenue Church of God was established in 1977 and has a membership of 150 to 200. With a vigorous community outreach, Lapointe and members of the church provide immigration services; identifications, especially for those who migrated to America after the earthquake in Haiti; job assistance; hospital services and translators.

“We have been to the shelters and jails to reach out to the people because the mission of the church is to show God’s love to those that do not normally hear it,” Lapointe said. The ministries coordinator draws to the conclusion that “churches are needed” and that is why there are so many. “People need a place to belong to, it’s a family, we have to be open for them, the church is basically for the community,” Lapointe added as her eyes widened and her curly afro moved in harmony with her gestures.

She recalled periods when the church gave refuge to Haitians who came to America with no place to lodge. “The people gravitate to where suits them, whether it’s immigration, employment or housing,” Lapointe said.

For these small churches, there is a balance. They are devoted to the spiritual enrichment of their membership, sharing their resources with the community through social and moral enlistment.

“Churches have taken the holistic approach to ministry by offering a plethora of services to the community,” Gilkes said. “It is now the norm to find churches offering GED classes, health screening, legal consultations and immigration services.”

Photo: All Saints Pentecostal Church is one of three small churches on one block in Brownsville. (Tiffany Thomas)