Celebrating past and present at the East Meadow Jewish Center

It’s been a festive year for the East Meadow Jewish Center, which has celebrated its 60th anniversary with a wide variety of community events. The festivities culminated last weekend, when the congregation hosted a Diamond Jubilee Weekend Celebration, a three-day event commemorating the synagogue’s history.

Members young and old, past and present gathered for special services, and hundreds, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Florida, attended a dinner party on Saturday night.

Members of the synagogue’s 60th Anniversary Committee — a planning team comprising longtime members — said they were expecting between 100 and 150 people at the party. In the end, some 230 showed up. “Sixty years, being as active a synagogue as we have,” said Rabbi Dr. Ronald Androphy, the spiritual leader of the Jewish Center, “is definitely cause for celebration.”

Incorporated on July 1, 1953, in its current location on Prospect Avenue, the synagogue has been led by just two rabbis — Dr. Israel Nobel for the first 30 years, and Androphy for the past 30.

It was shortly after World War II, explained Androphy, when an influx of young families began settling on Long Island, creating a need for a local synagogue. “They really built something out of nothing,” he said of the synagogue’s founding members. “There were families moving into the area, and they took a chance to establish a conservative synagogue here in this part of Long Island. The congregation has really grown and thrived.”

Though some modifications were made throughout the years, the synagogue has maintained its traditional, conservative values, in which Androphy, and other longtime members, take pride.