Observer Article

Its not on the web, but the writer was kind enough to send it to me as a Word document.

More to the Heights Than Meets the Eye
By Batsheva Lipschitz

What comes to mind when you think of Washington Heights?


For most people the answer is Yeshiva University (YU). Yet, former Stern College for Women (SCW) alumna Sarah Rindner (SCW '06) thinks there's more to "the Heights" than that. After living there for the past six months, Rindner now associates the community with a much broader group of people.

In the spring of 2006, Rindner co-created a blog about what she calls the "young, interesting, artistic, religiously concerned people who live in the Washington Heights area who do not really affiliate with any of the institutions there." The title of her blog, Underground Heights (UH), originally named by UH co-founder Elyakim Deutsch (YC '05), is meant to be ironic and to create awareness about communities in the Heights, other than the YU community. "Their presence goes somewhat unnoticed," observed Rindner. "The idea behind 'Underground Heights,' would be to bring some of those 'underground' elements out to the surface, and see what kind of community could emerge."

Rindner is proud to say that some of the same goals that inspired the blog have manifested themselves with the creation of a progressive new minyan (prayer group), Migdal Or. What differentiates Migdal Or from most other Orthodox minyanim is that a woman leads part of the Friday night services. Rindner compares Migdal Or to Congregation Darchei Noam in New York City , and Shira Chadasha in Jerusalem, Israel.

In a posting titled "Balcony Blues," Rindner expressed her feelings about synagogue mechitzas (physical partitions between males and females) and the separate role that women play in synagogue in general. When she attended Kehillat Hadar, a mechitza-free minyan on the Upper West Side of Manhattan , the open-minded Rindner said that instead of viewing tefilla (prayer) as a spectator-sport, she felt a sense of belonging. Her comment sparked further conversation on the topic, with many women admitting they felt the same way. This was perhaps the first time people of the Heights community discussed this issue publicly.

"I've never seen another blog that is both geographically, [and] community centered as ours is," commented Rindner, "as well as concerned with inner thoughts and struggles to the extent that we are. Because of that, it's kind of hard to categorize what UH is all about. Is it about community? Religious truth? Finding meaning in life? Finding love? Having fun with friends? I think for many of us, those things do work together, and the question is whether they can work together successfully in a public forum."

For the most part, UH, with a total of about 13,000 hits, has been successful in many ways. The creator of the blog asserts that UH has affected her personal relationships. She recalls that she found her roommate of half a year on the blog site. She also enjoys when people approach her about things they've read on the blog. But, Rindner explained, "perhaps even more meaningful has been the depth it's added to relationships I already have. Some of the most interesting conversations sparked by the blog have taken place over e-mail and in person long afterwards."

The former Monsey resident states that she usually checks UH about twice daily and looks forward to reading new comments. However, there are occasionally comments posted that Rindner does not appreciate. Some of the undesirable posts are those written by people who log on under fictitious names to comment in response to Migdal Or. According to Rindner, they say obnoxious things that they wouldn't dare say in public.

Despite these rude remarks, Rachel Berger, one of three roommates to host the first Migdal Or minyan a few weeks ago, credits UH with building "a sense of community here in Washington Heights for an artsy, thoughtful bunch of post YU grads."
Rindner states that she and Deutsch started UH "because [they] thought it would be fun to start a community blog." UH describes itself on the web as "an ironically named blog about some relatively interesting people in and around Washington Heights , and, to be fair, well beyond that area."

Now a resident of the Upper West Side, Rindner falls into the "well beyond that area" category. She asserts that it's worthwhile to run the UH blog and also finds it a constructive way to keep in touch with friends. "It's really exciting to think what kind of ripple effect even a teeny dip into the public sphere can have," she observed.

Stern College Observer- April 2007