After Sandy, congregations seek federal aid
The interior of the West End Temple in New York City’s Rockaway Beach neighborhood in Queens looks like a construction zone—walls and floors gutted down to the wooden studs, bathroom fixtures gone, warped pews piled in the banquet hall.
The synagogue is being dried out after Superstorm Sandy pushed four feet of water into the building from nearby Jamaica Bay.
The Reform congregation has applied for a rebuilding grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but the $51 billion disaster aid package that Congress is considering doesn’t specifically include houses of worship on the list of eligible nonprofits.
