Jewish Revival In Harlem Testing Gentrification Script
Erica Frankel and Dimitry Ekshtut moved to Harlem a decade ago after meeting as New York University students. She now works at Hillel’s Office of Innovation, and he’s a public school music teacher and aspiring rabbi.
Erica Frankel and Dimitry Ekshtut moved to Harlem a decade ago after meeting as New York University students. She now works at Hillel’s Office of Innovation, and he’s a public school music teacher and aspiring rabbi. They’re also both artists — a dancer and jazz musician, respectively.
Affordable rents drew them uptown initially, but they soon discovered other draws. They sensed that they could “really experiment. We just fell in love with this neighborhood, and have worked both through our efforts in the Jewish community and outside of it to try to be good neighbors and folks who are deeply invested in living here and in the wider neighborhood.”
