An UES street corner gets a new name — after a Holocaust museum in Israel

It was a sunny yet bitterly cold Thursday morning as an assortment of local politicians, Israeli officials and Upper East Side denizens gathered at the corner of East 67th and Third Avenue in Manhattan to witness the unveiling of a new, co-named street: Yad Vashem Way.

The new street sign, named for the Jerusalem museum built in 1953 as a memorial to victims of the Holocaust, is just a few steps from Park East Synagogue, the stately Orthodox congregation at 163 East 67th St. that’s been led for more than six decades by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, himself a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor.

“The co-naming of East 67th Street, Yad Vashem Way is a very personal, emotional, painful moment,” Schneier said during the chilly and brief outdoor ceremony. “On November 10, 1938, I saw my synagogue burn. And now there will be a sign on the street of East 67th Street, where the 19th precinct, the fire department, all are cooperating with us for our safety, unlike the policemen of my synagogue in Vienna on Kristallnacht who had been rejoicing — rejoicing in seeing that synagogue, along 1,200 synagogues in Germany and Austria, destroyed. So you can understand the difference.”

The street co-naming is one of two events that Yad Vashem — which is also known as The World’s Holocaust Memorial — organized in New York this week, in honor of Monday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which this year honors the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. (The other is a weeklong art exhibit at City Hall curated by the Israel-based museum featuring 11 works created by liberated Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.)

Both the art exhibit and the street dedication reflect New York’s importance as a home to Holocaust survivors; according to a Claims Conference report last year, approximately 14,700 survivors live in the state.

But only one of these events will permanently transform New York’s streetscape. In addition, the co-naming marks the first time a street in the U.S. honors the Israeli institution dedicated to memorializing the Holocaust.

Co-naming a street in New York City is no easy feat. First, the proposed names go to a local community board. Then, once the community board approves the name, it goes to the City Council as part of an omnibus bill, where it can get approved or denied. Typically, the most basic requirement for a street co-name is that the person is dead: Deceased Jewish luminaries like Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel all have streets co-named after them.

But institutions or other entities can also have streets co-named after them in some cases, like Israel Bonds Way on 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue, Sesame Street on 63rd Street and Broadway and, now, Yad Vashem.

On Thursday, after Schneier gave brief remarks, the ceremony moved inside the synagogue due to the cold weather. Inside the two-floor sanctuary, students from the congregation’s affiliated day school sang “Ani Maamin” and various officials spoke, including New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, Consul General of Israel in New York Ofir Akunis, Council member Keith Powers, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan.

Like Schneier before him, Dayan, too, expressed mixed emotions about the co-naming.

“On one hand, I came here from Auschwitz, where we commemorated the liberation, with all the feelings that the emotions that raises,” Dayan said. “On the other hand, I’m aware of the situation in New York with the rampant antisemitism, the graffiti, the antisemitic graffiti [at the] Israeli restaurant in Brooklyn, the encampments in Columbia University. So all these together makes it very emotional, first of all. And I think, important — we, everybody, that will see that sign, I hope, will be a source of the trigger to show reflection about the past, the present and the future.”

Powers, who spearheaded the street co-naming campaign, said that even though not everyone who passes the sign will know what Yad Vashem is, simply having the name out there is a good thing.

“They’ll hopefully take their phone out, they’ll Google it and that will get them to get engaged,” Powers said. “And that is one of the reasons for the street renamings.”

To learn about other NYC streets co-named for Jewish people and institutions, click here.