When I say that we live in Seagate people would often ask “Where is it?”. It’s interesting that even many of those who live in New York their entire life don’t know this neighborhood. Seagate is a gated beach community in Brooklyn, located at the very end of Coney Island.
We have a wonderful Jewish community in Seagate and I often volunteer to photograph different events throughout the year. I feel that this is my pay back to Rabbi Brikman and Rivkah Brikman for all their hard work and dedication.
This week, as I was uploading the images from the annual Lag BaOmer party to a folder on my website, I realized that it was the 5th consecutive year that I was covering this event. It was a quite exciting discovery as all of a sudden it was so much more than just photographing an event. With these images, as well as the images from all other events that I take for Chabbad by the Ocean, I record the history of our community – our journey together!
Today I want to share some of my favorites from the past five Lag BaOmer parties. I am sure you’ll be able to find my daughter in some of them.
Enjoy!
Lag BaOmer 2014
Lag BaOmer 2015
Lag BaOmer 2016
Lag BaOmer 2017
Lag BaOmer 2018
I also reached out to our rabbitsen Rivkah Brikman to add her voice to the story as otherwise it didn’t seem complete.
– How did the community change in the last 5 years?
After hurricane Sandy we thought people will want to leave and no one will want to move in …
Since Sandy we have many new families in Seagate. We are meeting new families weekly. I am sure the growth will continue.
– What’s the biggest challenge in leading the community?
Our goal is to know each and every person here on a personal level while Seagate is a contained community.
There is still such a yearning to see people more often, to visit them more often and to get to know everyone even better because the more we get to know people the more we see how blessed we are because the people are wonderful.
– What’s the biggest joy?
We have all grown however you don’t always see it on yourself…. But when you see the children of our community who were just born now having their bar and bat mitzvahs … it’s very exciting because we are one big family so their simchas are our simchas…and what can be better than to see the people you love happy!
I know that I’ll continue photographing our community as long as we live here and the thought of our history recorded through my lens makes my heart so full!
