A growing outreach organization based in Highland Park will celebrate a major gift from a donor family that expands the group’s capacity to reach young professionals.

Founded in 2015, Mesorah NJ provides social, educational and Shabbat events that are high quality and content-rich, to connect young Jewish professionals (22-35) with each other and to their beautiful heritage. Mesorah NJ holds get-togethers at sites in Highland Park, Jersey City and surrounding areas, offers weekly learning opportunities that come with ‘credits,’ and coordinates group trips to places like Panama, Iceland, Spain, Florida, and Lake George, New York.

Mesorah NJ invites members of the community to join them on Sunday September 10 for a hachnasat sefer Torah, to welcome the gift of a new sefer Torah dedicated in memory of Ladislav “Larry” Buchsbaum by his family—Rosalyn Buchsbaum, Erica and Andrew Schultz, Tamar and Stuart Green, and Karen and Tim Bock. The event will start with the writing of the final letters in the Torah at 11 a.m. at Congregation Etz Ahaim, 230 Denison Avenue, Highland Park, and continue with a celebratory procession starting at 12:30 p.m. from the shul to the home of Rabbi Yehoshua and Esther Lewis (directors of Mesorah NJ), at 116 Lincoln Avenue.

As Tamar Green shared, her father, Larry Buchsbaum, was a Holocaust survivor from Yugoslavia and later Hungary who fought in Israel’s War of Independence, studied at the Technion, and served as a radio operator in Israel’s Merchant Marine. He moved to the United States to complete his engineering degree at Columbia University and met his wife and built a family here. He believed fervently in three principles—love of family, love of the Jewish people and Israel, and a deep appreciation of his adoptive country, the United States.

“Mesorah NJ is an organization we’ve been involved with for a number of years. It does amazing things, and Rabbi Lewis and Esther are very dynamic people,” said Tamar Green. “Mesorah NJ wants their participants to meet professionals who are frum and we’ve been privileged to host women attending their shabbatons on a few occasions. We’ve gained a bunch of friends who we’ve become close with, through Mesorah NJ.”

Rabbi Lewis stated: “The Greens are a very big source of chizuk for me and for Mesorah NJ. They believe in us and our mission and have always been there for us, whenever we need something. Writing this sefer Torah is such a wonderful reflection of their connection to the organization.”

Jack Atkin of Edison, a board member of Mesorah NJ, said: “Mesorah NJ, a terrific organization led by a power couple, Rabbi Yehoshua and Rebbetzin Esther Lewis, helps bring young Jewish professionals together to strengthen their connection to Yiddishkeit and to Am Yisroel. Mesorah runs many shabbatons, in Highland Park and Jersey City, and Rabbi Lewis always had to borrow a sefer Torah for these shabbatons. The donation of a sefer Torah to Mesorah is not only a recognition of how far Mesorah has come but will be a tremendous convenience to the organization as it continues to grow.”

For more information on Mesorah NJ, see: https://www.mesorahnj.com/