Michael Scharf, synagogue
president. |
PARK EAST SYNAGOGUE
Boss Takes Orders
From The Rabbi
By Tim Boxer
 ICHAEL
SCHARF, as head of Niagara Corp., answers to no one. But
he wasn’t always the boss. When he first started out in business,
the boss one day looked up and asked Michael to fill his glass with
water.
As Michael brought the water, a thought crossed
his mind: “I’m going to leave and never work for somebody else
again.”
Michael left and never worked for somebody else
again – until he joined Park East Synagogue.
“I’ve been working for Rabbi Arthur
Schneier for 20 years,” he told an appreciative audience of
450 at the synagogue’s annual dinner at the Pierre Hotel.
Russian Consul General
Viacheslav A. Pavlovskiy and
Rabbi
Arthur Schneier. |
He’s been working all those years as the
synagogue’s president, while presiding over Niagara Corp., a steel
company, as its chairman, president and CEO.
Michael introduced guest speaker William
Thompson Jr., the city comptroller, to great applause.
“We’re applauding the people we pay our
taxes to!” he marveled. “This is unique in the annals of
synagogue life.”
Thompson praised Rabbi Schneier for “bringing
people of all backgrounds to understand each other.”
Rabbi Schneier, founding president of the
Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an ecumenical coalition of business
and religious leaders working for religious tolerance, last week
received the State Department’s Special Recognition Award last
week from Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Rabbi Arthur and Elisabeth Schneier, from
left, Michael
and Sydelle Lazar,
Dr. Sheldon Muhlbauer and Marilyn Meltzer.
|
At the synagogue dinner, Rabbi Schneier
presented a Man of the Year Award to Michael Lazar, a
board member of the synagogue and national president of Bnai Zion, and an
Educator of the Year Award to Marilyn Meltzer, principal of
general studies at the synagogue’s day school.
Marilyn thanked the audience, and also her
husband, Sheldon, a urologist.
“As a student at Yeshiva Torah V’Daat in
Brooklyn, my husband spent many hours in the principal’s
office,” Marilyn said. “Now he has to live with one.”
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