Teaneck and Queens

Jeremy

We moved seamlessly from discussing the state of the Jewish community to the good and bad points of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. We talked about the anti-kabbalah culture of Yeshiva University, we talked about my ideas on God, Torah and mythology. He recommended I read Planetary; I recommended he finish The Sandman. He gave chassidic wort (i.e. a word of Torah) about the kabbalistic significance of the dreidel, while I the previous night had been discussing how one can simultaneously hold that the universe began in a Big Bang and was created by God in seven days, without contradiction.

Sandy, Schechter and Students

Jeremy

From the Upper West Side, without any communications with the rest of the city or the internet, we would have no idea that Sandy had been such a disaster. Round here, it was windy, it was stormy, and it was rainy. And some trees fell down. But we've all seen the pictures of devastation Downtown.

Looking out my apartment window, I watched the lights in New Jersey go out—they were only turned back on a week later, or so. We've heard horror stories of Long Island, particularly Long Beach and Rockaway where whole streets were destroyed, army personnel are guarding the streets and giving out aid, and they might not get power back for six months.

Miri

But there's something amazing about New York city's reactions.

Before moving from New Haven to New York I really thought that 'New-Yorkerness' was grossly exaggerated. But, as it turns out, New Yorkers are incredibly resilient. Much of the city went back to work whilst the bottom third of the island was without power or water. People walked through streets with no traffic lights (or 'stop lights') to shower at offices above 40th Street as though it were just another item on a long to-do list. And the snow storm just over a week after Sandy hardly phased anyone. What still troubles and confuses me is the question of how to characterise the reaction of this city to the hurricane. On the one hand New Yorkers came together  in extraordinary ways; volunteering, donating food, blankets, money and even blood.