Corona synagogue could be landmarked

A historic Corona synagogue could be declared a landmark next month.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is scheduled to vote on the property - the nearly 100-year-old Congregation Tifereth Israel, which serves the growing Bukharian Jewish community in Corona - on Tuesday, February 12.
“Tifereth Israel would be the first synagogue landmarked in Queens,” said Jeff Gottlieb, President of the Central Queens Historical Society and the Queens Jewish Historical Association.
So far the agency has already calendared the proposal and held a public meeting — the first two steps in the landmarking process, said LPC spokesperson Lisi de Bourbon. The third and final step is the vote.
Rabbi Amnun Khaimov and his wife Esther, who run the house of worship near the corner of 108th Street and 54th Avenue, said that they are excited at the prospect of earning the designation.
“It will be a miracle,” the Rabbi said on Monday, January 21, the eve of the Jewish holy day Tu B’Shevat, or holiday of the trees.
During the feast day, the congregation celebrates with at least seven kinds of dried fruit and nuts to represent the fruit of people’s kindness, Esther Khaimov explained.
The Khaimovs, who took over the synagogue in 1997, have wondered whether they will soon see the fruits of their own labor at the Corona synagogue, which has fallen into disrepair despite efforts by the couple and worshippers to fix the problems.
“We love it but [there are] a lot of doubts,” Esther Khaimov said.
Over the past decade, the synagogue has been plagued with termites, leaks, peeling paint and a partially collapsed ceiling in the basement, where community events, bar mitzvahs and senior socials were once held.
“One Saturday, the ceiling fell and the girls got scared,” Esther Khaimov said, explaining that most of the programming had to be postponed indefinitely.
Now the estimate to repair the building’s exterior is about $1.4 million, said Ann-Isabel Friedman, Director of the Sacred Sites Program for the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which has been working with the synagogue’s leaders since 1997.
And although the congregation has been awarded several allocations from the city and state - totaling more than $1 million - there are legal issues as to what and how much they can collect as a religious, privately-owned non-profit.
A landmark designation, the Khaimovs believe, would likely facilitate more grants, allow easier access to money that has already been earmarked for them, and shine a spotlight on the building, just as the 1999 designation as a “Queensmark” and 2002 recognition from the National Register of Historic Places helped garner more attention for the historic structure from preservationists.
“They, like angels, started to guide us about what we can do to the synagogue,” Esther Khaimov said.
“This is a really important surviving building. It’s a rare wood synagogue,” Friedman said. “It’s one of the oldest, if not the oldest, synagogue used in continuous worship in Queens.”
And as new Jewish immigrants from Russia and eastern European nations continue to arrive in western Queens, the need for a Bukharian house of worship and community center continues, Esther Khaimov said.
“Recent immigrants … they give all of their time to learn, to give themselves to society, but this kind of program, financially, they can’t handle it,” she said when asked about fundraising within the synagogue’s community.
So the Khaimovs are simply waiting to see the result of next month’s vote. They hope that the building will become a landmark and that they will be able to receive grants to repair the structure and reopen the basement for programs like Hebrew classes.
“This place has a special feeling,” Esther Khaimov said. “Even in such a condition, it still serves the people.”