By Alex Christodoulides
The rabbis visiting the Margaret Tietz Center in Jamaica will one day soon be spared any temptation of pressing every button when the nursing home and rehabilitation facility phases in its shabbos elevator, part of its plans to make the building more welcoming to observant Jews.
Also on the list of changes are the glatt kosher kitchen, complete with frum chef, and shabbos-friendly doors to the building. For relatives visiting long-term patients at the Tietz Center, there is also a shabbos apartment available at no additional cost, with lights on timers.
More than a dozen rabbis visited the Tietz Center last Thursday to view the changes, tour the building, cram into the elevator, cut a ceremonial ribbon in the kitchen and visit the shabbos apartment.
“We're serving approximately 20 people right now,” said Rabbi Perlman of the new kosher kitchen, which is supervised by the Vaad Harabonim of Queens and staffed by frum cooks who are sensitive to residents' needs. “The cooks bring the food up to the residents. It's never wrapped, and we have [staff] to bring it up on shabbos.”
For Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, using anything mechanized on the sabbath is forbidden. That is why the Tietz Center's entrance doors have been retrofitted to open manually and automatically, the lights in the shabbos apartment are on timers, and one of the elevators — once modified — will stop at every floor so that passengers do not need to press any buttons.
The center's original population of Holocaust survivors is dying, and the new generation of Jews interested in the Tietz Center's type of care tend to be kosher and more observant of certain rites and practices than Tietz residents in years past.
“This facility has a door that opens manually, which is more comfortable for people on shabbos,” Perlman said. “The staff know when someone religious is coming, and they open the doors for you.”
The rabbis viewed all the changes before heading to the new kosher kitchen and sampling the chef's dishes — sesame chicken, matzo ball soup, noodles, salad with homemade croutons and apple strudel.
The process has taken time, but the center believes it will pay off.
“This began about a year ago, and we got all the rabbis involved,” said Michael Fassler, president and CEO of Bronx-based Beth Abraham Health Services, with which the Tietz Center is affiliated, of the decision to set up the kosher kitchen. “The Orthodox demographic in the Bronx is changing, and as we identify needs, Beth Abraham is committed to expanding.”
