The Y Continues to Provide Essential Services Amid City Shut Down

Amid the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, New York State ordered 100% of non-essential work to take place from home or close for the interim, in an effort to flatten the curve and help prevent the further spread of the disease.

The Y @ Home Officially Launches

For 102 years, the YM & YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood (the Y) has been a premier community center and human-service organization in northern Manhattan with the vast majority of its activities and services taking place in person. While in recent years the Y expanded the reach of its programs to other locations under the Y’s supervision, it continued to mostly focus on face-to-face programs.

Irish Step Dancing Delight Seniors

On Sunday, March 1, 2020, members of the Center for Adults Living Well (CALW) at the YM&YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood (the Y) were treated to a lively performance by the New York Studio of Irish Step Dance.

Leading with Compassion in Uncertain Times

The YM&YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood (the Y) has been a pillar in our community for more than a century — a place where people of all ages and backgrounds can thrive. We educate the youngest among us, provide meals and companionship for those in their golden years, offer enriching activities for youth and their families, and so much more. We pride ourselves in the top-notch services we provide everyone who walks through our doors or attends any of the myriad of our offsite programs.

The Y has a Dream

To celebrate Martin Luther King’s legacy, the Y hosted a series of events in the month of January culminating with a large event and service project on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

We Are Never Alone When We March For Justice and Unity

With the rise in hate crimes all over the world and in the United States groups have been gathering to march to show their strength and perseverance. The hate crimes against the Jewish community in the past two years have increased and become more violent. Over the holiday of Channukah, multiple incidents of hate against the Jewish community occurred. This drastic string of events caused the Jewish community to stand up and organize a march.

How The Y Helps the Community

Two very different community members, one organization that helps all.

One family who suffered a major loss and with the Y's help was able to grieve, recover and move forward.

One senior who survived the Holocaust, Stalin's Police State and with the Y's help was able to find a home in Washington Heights' Wien House. 

Please read both stories below as they demonstrate how the Y is there for its community as it always has been for the past 102 years, 365 days a year to provide help and care, joy and celebration, grief and support, inspiration and pride – all with kindness.

Paying Tribute to the Tree of Life Synagogue one year later

Last month marked the one-year anniversary for the shooting at the Tree of Life Syagogue in Pittsbugh, the worst anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States. Twenty-one representatives from 16 different Jewish Community Centers (JCC) paid their tribute to mark this solemn event while providing support to supporters but still recognizing a sense of community and hope that has been built from this tragic event. A detailed description of this event can be found here in an e-mail message from Doron Krakow, president and CEO of JCC Association of North America. 

Last year Martin Yafe, our Chief Program Officer, drove to Pittsburgh during the aftermath of this senseless and hateful shooting to pay our respects, while our CEO, Martin Englisher, provided his statement here. 

On October 27^th of this year Victoria participated in a deployment to Pittsburgh with 19 of her fellow Jewish Community Center (JCC) professionals from throughout the continent as part of JResponse, a program of the JCC Association of North America which brings the greatest asset of the JCC Movement, its people, to provide relief and recovery efforts after a crisis, disaster, or other time of serious need.

Victoria was among a team who staffed the JCC during the one year commemoration of the Tree of Life shooting, helping to answer phones, interact with community members, staff a blood drive, and do whatever else was needed so the local staff could be free to grieve and reflect with their community. Victoria’s poem reflects the deep impact the JResponse deployment had not only on the Jewish community of Pittsburgh, but on the JResponders themselves.

Lost (and Found) in Inwood

Author Talk Connects the Past to the Present

On a rainy October night, members of the Center for Adults Living Well (CALW) @ the Y were captivated by old photographs projected onto the Y’s big movie screen. For more than an hour, they travelled back in time to when Nagle Avenue was the Nagle family farm.

L' Shanah Tova 5780