Constitutio in actu? Eliezer Dileon’s Letter to the Minsk Kahal, 1817

A letter by the army contractor Eliezer Dileon to the community board of Minsk relating his audience with Tsar Alexander I of Russia in January 1817 sheds light on the significance of the performative dimension of Jewish intercession. In the perception of the intercessor, due to the personal encounter between the sovereign ruler and himself, the Jews in Russia constitute part of the political and societal fabric of the Empire, it sees them as ‘a people.’ The letter is one of the very few documents describing and confirming the symbolic meaning of an encounter between a monarch and a Jewish intercessor. It reflects on the reciprocal nature of negotiations between the state and the Jewish minority, the limitations in concrete outcomes notwithstanding.

Prologue

This chapter provides a background to an adventure that began with the author's love of the waterfront and her singular passion to build a floating pool and donate it to the city for use by recreationally underserved New Yorkers. It traces the author's discovery of the Progressive Era's nineteenth-century floating baths and her first nearly adversarial meeting with a community board to securing a barge to contain the pool. It also discusses the financing of the floating project, including its design and refitting of the vessel. The chapter reviews the story of the decline of and attempts to revitalize the New York and New Jersey waterfronts in the 1980s and 1990s. It cites the periodic rises in the real estate market and oil spill that had a direct negative impact on locating a barge to house the floating pool.

Horizons Community Board collection: optical and photonic materials

Nanoscale Horizons Community Board members Xiaolu Zhuo and Qingchen Dong and Materials Horizons Community Board member Li Na Quan introduce this Horizons Community Board collection on materials and devices for optics and photonics.

Horizons Community Board collection: solar energy conversion

A themed collection on solar energy conversion, guest edited by Materials Horizons Community Board members Rebecca Gieseking and Alexandra Ramadan and Nanoscale Horizons Community Board member Jungki Ryu.

Engaging a community for youth mental health and wellness: Reflections and lessons learned

As clinicians at a university-affiliated health centre faced with youth mental health and substance use concerns, we reached out to the local community for guidance. We partnered with community leaders to explore how to best understand the issues and engage with the community. Using a community-engaged research (CEnR) approach, we conducted a needs assessment to explore the issues and inform change. We formalised a partnership with the local school and community board, which led to the creation of a Community Alliance. Our engagement efforts allowed us to understand the community more deeply and establish more effective change. Our most successful outcome was the development of a youth mental health and wellness Action Plan which helped direct our strategies moving forward. This article highlights our community engagement activities, processes and lessons learned, which may be of benefit to other academic researchers and clinicians who are interested in CEnR.

Building a Subway and Unleashing the Plagues

This chapter details the challenges brought about by the construction of the Second Avenue subway. Despite the extensive efforts of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to minimize impacts, the businesses and residents along Second Avenue had little patience for the construction. Residents lived with loud noises outside their windows and they also complained about dust. Moreover, water, electricity, cable, and telephone services were periodically halted. Manhattan's Community Board 8, which covers the Upper East Side between 59th and 96th Streets, served as a conduit between the community and the MTA. In response to the complaints from residents, MTA Capital Construction president Michael Horodniceanu implemented what was by far the most ambitious community outreach effort the MTA had ever conducted. Horodniceanu's efforts helped Upper East Siders understand the project's enormous scale and the MTA's extensive efforts to minimize construction impacts. Likewise, construction officials became much more sensitive to the community when they heard directly from residents and business owners at workshops.

Horizons Community Board Collection: Biosensors

A themed collection on biosensing, guest edited by Nanoscale Horizons Community Board members Zhiyuan Liu and Arun Richard Chandrasekaran and Materials Horizons Community Board member Gift Mehlana.