Gene Lesserson rushed to his synagogue in Hauppauge, L.I., at 7:30 Sunday morning after learning that an arsonist had torched the building during the night, destroying a ground floor office.
“It’s a sickening feeling to see our little shul damaged by an arson fire,” he said later. “I walked in there and had the feeling that my own house was destroyed. You could still smell the smoke from even outside the building. It was everywhere — in the carpets and the talleisim. … Everything is going to have to be cleaned.”

Her two small children in tow, a 30-ish mother walked out of the Central Queens Y and down the front stairs this week.
A few steps away on 108th Street, her children, who had spent the morning at the Forest Hills Y’s nursery program, announced that they were hungry. Mom gave them a few dollar bills to buy snacks from a machine in the Y front lobby.
The kids raced back up the stairs; their mother trailed behind, watching them the whole way.
“I never let them out of my sight — always,” she declared.