• The Synagogue has a dedicated Wikipedia page: Jewish Center of Brighton Beach.
• The Synagogue was built in a Renaissance Revival architectural style and features Chagall-like stained-glass windows, and was known for its grand staircase and second-story loggia. It was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
• The congregation was founded in 1914. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein was the rabbi from 1940 right up until his death in 2002.
• Shortly after Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein became the rabbi he held a memorial service for the prior rabbi wherein Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise (an early leader of Reform Judaism and founder of the “Free Synagogue” movement) served as the keynote speaker.
• Eleanor Roosevelt was a guest speaker at the shul at the invitation of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein.
• Undeground Railroad run in Synagogue: “Rabbi Dr. Neustein ran a sort of Underground Railroad for abused women in the community ... two or three times a week, [Rabbi Neustein] drove the women to the Jewish Center’s bais medrash, the prayer room where he taught, and they told ... their stories: of domestic violence, of crumbling marriages, of  get refusals” (Village Voice, 2013).
• Dan Morrison, reporter from Newsday, made a trip to the Jewish Center of Brighton Beach to meet with Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein, his daughter Dr. Amy Neustein, and with a group of abused Orthodox Jewish women who were seeking sanctuary in the shul so that they could tell their stories about domestic violence and abuse of their children by their ex-spouses without reprisals. They met in the bais medrash.
• In 2005, the bais medrash (the same room in the Synagogue where Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein conducted his underground movement) was visited by Nicolas Cage when he was filmed in Lord of War (see here).

Memorial

• July 19, 2002 “The Life and Legacy of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein,” by Amy Neustein. Algemeiner Journal, p. B2.

• September 6, 2002 (Rosh Hashana 5763) “Remembering Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein.” The Jewish Press, September 6, 2002, p. 58.

Profile Story on Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein in Yated Ne'eman

• December 5, 2023 “Rabbi Abraham Neustein and Rabbi Yechiel Mekler: Two Rabbonim of Beth Israel” by Yitzchok Shteierman. Yated Ne’eman; print version 5 Cheshvan 5784 | October 20, 2023, p. 108 — pdf version here.

    “In 1931, at the tender age of nineteen, he [Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein] assumed his first rabbinic pulpit at Beth Israel of Boro Park. There, he led the shul with dedication and oversaw the Talmud Torah [and] was a student of Rav Chaim Heller, who told him, ‘I am choosing you to learn with me personally.’ They did indeed learn together b’chavrusa.” — Yitzchok Shteierman

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein Served as a Keynote Speaker at Kristallnacht Rally — November 1938

• November 24, 2023 “Two Historic Rallies Of American Jewry: 1938 And 2023” by Dr. Amy Neustein. The Jewish Press, p. 13 (print version); pdf version: here.

Article was selected by Coalition for Jewish Values’ (CJV) “Rabbi’s Roundup” for the Week of December 1, 2023 (pdf here)

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein as First Principal of Flatbush Yeshiva High School

• Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein was chosen by Dr. Joel Braverman to head up both the English and Hebrew Departments of Flatbush Yeshiva High School in 1950 when the school first opened.
• He curated eminent faculty members including Rabbi Chaim Wasserman to serve in the school.
• Among the graduates were Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow.
• Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein made many trips to Albany in the early 1950s to obtain a charter for the school so that it could serve as a recognized educational institution (see photo below).

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein given the “Kesser Shem Tov” award “in grateful recognition of his steadfast support to Ponevez and its affiliated institutions” located in Bnei Brak, Israel (November 22, 1998). After he passed away in 2002, the Ponevez Yeshiva awarded him the Talmid Chacham Ha’dor Award (November 24, 2002).

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein Inspires Legislation to Help Abused Mothers

• Former Assemblyman Oliver Koppell designated Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein as a principal witness for a legislative hearing into the tragic abuses of women and children in the family court system in New York and throughout the country.
• Mothers flew in from all over the country to testify to their anguishing loss of their children to sexually abusive fathers; most mothers tragically never saw their children again. Some children died by starving themselves; others died by hanging themselves; and some mothers took their own lives. A retrospective on this event is described in West Side Spirit.
• Rabbi Neustein was personally touched by this tragedy as explained below. He devoted his life to helping battered women because of his own suffering.

Here are photos of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein serving as a key witness at a joint hearing held by the New York State Assembly Judiciary Committee and the New York State Senate Judiciary Committee. Other committees joined in, such as the New York State Senate Committee on Child Care and the New York State Assembly Committee on Children and Families. It was held in the hearing room on the 10th floor of the Arthur J. Levitt Legislative Office Building at Chambers and Broadway in New York City.

Colleagues Support Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein who Suffered an Unspeakable Tragedy

• Rabbi Israel Kravitz pounded the pavement going from one political office to the next urging an investigation of the Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services that tore Rabbi Neustein’s 6-year-old granddaughter away from his home where Dr. Amy Neustein lived with her child.
• Rabbi Israel Kravitz asked Rabbi Isaac Trainin (Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services) to intercede. Rabbi Trainin asked David Roth, Executive Vice President of the Jewish Child Care Association, for help. His letter (reproduced here) stated:
  “Frankly, I have always had questions about ‘Ohel’”
• Rabbi Israel Kravitz testified that the political structure was terrified of the Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services.
• Rebbetzin Rachel A. Anolick testified along with Rabbi Israel Kravitz to the sex trafficking of Rabbi Neustein’s granddaughter at the hands of Ohel Children's Home and Family Services.
• At present there are numerous lawsuits against Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services for the sexual torture of children as reported by the Times of Israel.

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Neustein, Devalued, Degraded, Demoralized — and Maimed — in Brooklyn Family Court at Instigation of Lawyer for Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services

• Mothers in US Family Courts can't breathe either. Israel National News (Arutz Sheva), June 17, 2020; pdf version: here.

    My father quickly raised his hand to ask the judge to be allowed to represent me for that one day since although we thought I’d be given an adjournment, motions were now spewing forth from the other side. What happened next was no less than shocking. The judge gestured to the bailiffs. My father was immediately grabbed tightly by the arm, one bailiff on each side. He lost his balance and slid to the floor. He was already a man in his 70s at the time and couldn’t raise himself from the floor. I extended my hand to help him but the bailiff pushed me back. I saw my father, a man of dignity and accomplishment who spent his life rendering rabbinic counseling to others, dragged out and thrown into the corridor outside the courtroom. He would later need a permanent steel rod in his right hip in order to walk properly again.

Home • Amy Neustein • Childless Mother
Daughter of Famous Rabbi — Lord of War (starring Nicolas Cage) Filmed at her Father’s Synagogue in 2005
I Think of My Ancestor’s Manhattan Murder As Time Ticks for Jews — Newsweek (“My Turn” Column)
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