Rabbi Michah Kelber just sent word that the Bay Ridge Jewish Center has an interesting blog. I interviewed Rabbi Kelber for an article in the Brooklyn Paper last year — so I am aware of him and his work. Micah and BRJC blog: Welcome to the Brooklyn Blog Zone.

Here’s an excerpt from  interesting post called Where We’re From.

This is a photograph of the grandfather Eliezer Bloshteyn, one of the
members at the Bay Ridge Jewish Center. His name is Ze’ev Shleyfer. He
was called Wolfe in Yiddish, and Vladimir in Russian. He was born
around the year 1870 in the shtetl Ovruch, which is in the center of
the Ukraine, close to the shtetl where Rabbi Nachman was born. In 1941,
their family had left Odessa and moved to Tashkent where he died. In
Odessa, he was a shoemaker and a serious man. In the community, he was
considered to be a very dignified person. Eliezer and his family lived
on the third floor of the building and his grandparents lived in the
basement. His grandparents’ apartment was always clean and light.
Inside of their apartment there was a big storage cabinet with Kosher
plates and forks. They always ate kosher food.

He was
religious, but in private, as you were forced to be in the Soviet Union
at the time. In 1937, Stalin had taken a lot of people and put them in
jail, not because they were Jewish, but because they believed in God.
So few people prayed in the synagogues out of fear and eventually they
were closed. The Jewish newspapers and other institutions were closed
down as well. So, Ze’ev would put his siddur on the window ledge, put on his tefillin and davin facing
the light. Eliezer remembers him putting his talis on his shoulders and
making Eliezer say prayers. He remembers distinctly the words “Modeh Ani Lifanecha.”  (“I acknowledge that you are before me.”)

Check it out.