Only three days ago, popular singer and songwriter Mordechai Werdyger, known by his thousands of Orthodox Jewish fans as Mordechai Ben David, or just MBD, shot and distributed a video clip depicting the destruction of his neighborhood, Sea Gate, at the southwestern tip of Brooklyn, NY, in an effort to raise awareness—and donations—to rebuild this once thriving Jewish community.
The video starts at MBD’s basement recording studio, which has been totaled by the flood of ocean water—noting that the water only reached up to the level where pictures of famous rebbes were hanging. MBD then goes out to the beach, walking over the broken slabs of asphalt and concrete, surveying the astonishing damage.
Now rumor has it that MBD has decided to move to Israel, where he has purchased an apartment in a 330-unit residential complex being built at the T’nuva Compound, in the neighborhood of Romema, Jerusalem.
In what appears in hindsight as nothing short of a stroke of prophecy, Jewish Press Online blogger Tzvi Fishman, a devoted advocate of Jewish immigration to Israel, has called on MBD and others just this week to turn the misfortune of Sandy into an opportunity:
“Brothers and sisters of New York and New Jersey– rebuild your washed-out communities in Israel! Mordechai Ben David, Avraham Fried, and Shwekey – we have beautiful recording studios in Israel, as dry as can be! Instead of coming here for concerts on Chol HaMoed Sukkot and Pesach, come here to live, and give your holiday concerts in Brooklyn instead! It’s a lot safer living in Israel!”
And Fishman complains no one is listening to him…