Leonard Grunstein shares a video from this spring’s YIVO site launch

Leonard Grunstein has recently shared a slideshow including photos of a YIVO event that took place last May. The event was held in celebration of the launch of YIVO’s Digital Archive on Jewish Life in Poland, a website dedicated to memorabilia from the institute’s collections on Polish Jewry pre-WWII that was made possible in part by the Grunstein family.

The video features photos of the tours, presentation and reception held at the event. Tours were given of YIVO’s archives and rare book collection, followed by a reception and a presentation by YIVO CEO Jonathan Brent that discussed the importance of documenting the heritage of Eastern European Jews. The full video can be found below or on Leonard Grunstein’s YouTube channel.

Leonard Grunstein shares visit to Crown Heights

Leonard Grunstein recently shared a slideshow highlighting the Jewish world in and around New York City. Focusing mainly on the Crown Heights community in Brooklyn, NY, the video shows locations such as the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, the Congregation Kol Israel synagogue, and The Jewish Children’s Museum.

In addition to touring the neighborhood, Grunstein was also able to pay a visit to the Chabad-Lubavitch Library’s exhibition hall, which is currently home to a collection of rare Jewish manuscripts and books.

Grunstein’s visit was inspired by a colleague at the YIVO Institute, a research institute on Eastern European Jewry to which he has been a prolific donor. In April, the Grunstein family contributed a generous gift to the organization that allowed it to launch an online archive of Jewish life in Poland before World War II.

Grunstein’s family lived in Crown Heights for a few years when they first moved to New York from Wisconsin in the late 1950s. Said Grunstein of the new exhibit, “It was thrilling to see ancient texts that were printed many hundreds of years ago and to talk to the extremely knowledgeable librarian. It is an amazing resource that should be experienced.”

The full slideshow of his experience can be viewed below as well as on Vimeo.

 

 

More on Leonard Grunstein.

‘Poor door’ no more: Here’s an easy fix.

Leonard Grunstein recently contributed to Crain’s New York Business, suggesting rent vouchers as an answer to New York’s affordable housing crisis and the recent “poor door” controversy. The “poor door” concept, which suggested a separate entrance for subsidized tenants at an Upper West Side luxury building, was a widely criticized suggested policy.

According to Grunstein, suggestion of this policy should come at no surprise. Having affordable and luxury housing units on the same site would allow developers to receive tax abatements so long as 20% of a building’s units are kept below market rate.

This does not need to be the only solution; however, and Grunstein suggests the use of rent vouchers to help families struggling to afford it. Rather than requiring more affordable units, the city must address the underlying problem: rents are out of reach for many hardworking families. This can be alleviated with rent vouchers that low-income tenants would use at apartments throughout the city like any other tenant, instead of being relegated to “poor units.”

The budget for the vouchers could be funded by requiring developers to pay into a city-administered trust fund, with contributions that were comparable to the cost of constructing affordable units. This change can more effectively align housing policy with need.