At the Aug. 9 a ground breaking are, from left, building committee cochair Michael Wasserman, president Barry Levinson, lead contributors Imre and Rachel Lefkovits, Rabbi Emeritus Ronald Schwarzberg, building and fund-raising committee member Abe Schwarzbard, and Rabbi Steven Miodownik.
Photos by Debra Rubin
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Congregation Ahavas Achim in Highland Park is set to begin a $1.5 million expansion and renovation.
Holocaust survivors Imre and Rachel Lefkovits, who made the leading gift toward the expansion, listen during the ceremony.
August 18, 2009
Congregation Ahavas Achim in Highland Park broke ground Aug. 9 on a $1.5 million renovation and expansion.
The event held special significance for Holocaust survivors Imre and Rachel Lefkovits.
The Highland Park couple provided the leading gift for the project as part of their vision of helping to rebuild the Jewish life they watched destroyed in the Shoa.
The 7,000-square-foot expansion, expected to begin within two weeks of the ground-breaking ceremony, should take 10-12 months to complete.
Building committee chair Elliot Frank and the couple declined to give the exact amount of the gift but described it as being “very significant.”
Frank said the congregation has collected almost 90 percent of the needed funds for a project first conceived about 10 years ago by its rabbi emeritus, Ronald Schwarzberg.
“This means the world to us,” Rachel Lefkovits told NJJN during the ceremony. “We are excited to build this beis midrash because of what [the Nazis] destroyed.”
She is a native of Czechoslovakia who came to the United States in 1947. Her husband, a native of Hungary, arrived in 1949.
“We now have our children and grandchildren and it is important to us that they have this and they go in the right direction,” she said. “We are going to celebrate our 59th wedding anniversary on Sept. 10. We hope this will give the community a lot of education and enjoyment.”
The couple’s daughter, Susan Wiesel of Edison, said her parents always stressed the importance of supporting Jewish life and values.
“They wanted to provide a place of Torah learning for many generations to come and so the community could continue to grow,” said Wiesel. “They have had many advantages and they just wanted to do the right thing.”
Frank said the congregation has experienced “slow and steady growth” since moving to Highland Park from New Brunswick in 1987. It dedicated its current building in 1989.
It has about 250 member families and 85 associate member families who also belong to another area synagogue.
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