The Great Neck Synagogue is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, but Rabbi Dale Polokoff and his congregation will not be focusing on the past.
Instead Polakoff, who has been with the synagogue for 24 years, has used the theme “60 Years Young” to help focus a nearly year-long celebration in honor of one of the area’s oldest religious institutions back toward assisting the community it has inhabited for the past six decades.
“It’s a great anniversary,” Polakoff said. “Sometimes when you reach 60, you feel old. Great Neck Synagogue reached 60, we feel young.”
“That was the source of our theme ‘60 Years Young,'” he added, “because we feel like we’re still vibrant and vital and thriving and growing and giving and it only gets better and better.”
The synagogue held its anniversary celebrations on Saturday, Dec. 10 as part of its annual celebration, the Great Neck Synagogue 60th Anniversary Journal Dinner.
The dinner honored Rona and Dr. Myles Mittleman, along with Anida and Dr. Edwin Rossman. Vivian Mahlab Kron received the Boneh Habayit Award, which was presented by Polakoff.
But as the synagogue follows the Jewish calendar, which runs from September until August, Polakoff said the most meaningful celebrations are still to come.
The synagogue will host a special “cultural and educational” program throughout the year entitled “Great Neck Synagogue 2011 – 60 Years Young.” The program will feature speakers and other performance-based programming intended to celebrate the synagogue’s anniversary, Polakoff said.
The synagogue will also be running a “chesed” project throughout, which will assist needy people throughout the area.
“We have an entire program for our 60th anniversary, each month collecting different things for people who are less fortunate than we are in Great Neck,” Polakoff said. The project utilizes the Hebrew word “chesed,” which translates to “caring” in English, for its theme.
Members of the synagogue will help collect donations for a coat drive as part of the chesed project, while food and other types of clothing drives will also be held.
“We have a community very interested in doing these kinds of acts of caring as we celebrated our 60th,” Polakoff said. “It shouldn’t just be a celebration for us. We see our celebration in helping other people as well.”
For Polakoff and his congregation, giving back to the community was of the utmost importance this year.
“It was a deliberate decision because the synagogue sees itself as being here to have an impact on our Great Neck community and the larger community,” Polakoff said. “Certainly one of the ways that we can mark our 60 years of being here is to be able to give back to others.”
The Great Neck Synagogue was established in 1951 by a group of a dozen Jewish couples who “banded together to create a center for Orthodox Judaism,” according to a written history of the organization on its Web site.
In September of 1952, the founders then purchased a home on a half-acre site, which was then called “synagogue row” at 26 Old Mill Road in Great Neck.
The synagogue remains at that location today. More than 600 families currently make up the congregation of the Great Neck Synagogue.
Polakoff, who has been with the synagogue for nearly half of its existence, said he witnessed the religious organization grow in many ways.
“The synagogue has grown really in wonderful ways, both with young families moving into the community and also with some of our more veteran families that have stepped up to leadership roles in the synagogue and the community,” the Rabbi said. “We’re really very proud of our membership.”
And Polakoff said he expects those contributions to steadily grow during the next year and beyond.
“It’s not like we had 300 last year and we have 600 this year,” Polakoff said. “We grow, but we grow at a nice pace.”
