The town that Jewish firefighters built By Cindy Mindell DANBURY - On Sept. 1, 2002, members of the Lake Waubeeka community dedicated a garden to the “heroic efforts of the pioneer fire-fighters and their wives.” The memorial plaque reads: “In tribute to those members of Ner Tormid, the Jewish firemen of the City of New York who were the founders of Lake Waubeeka. They have left an indelible mark on the lives of this community. 1950” The founders were members of the Naer Tormid society, the Brotherhood of Jewish Firefighters, founded in 1925 in New York City. The name was the mis-transliteration of the Hebrew “ner tamid,” eternal flame, by the original FDNY Jewish chaplain, Rabbi Edward Lissman, says society historian Steve Klein. In 1996, when Klein became the organization’s president, he corrected the spelling by filing an assumed name with the State of New York. Ner Tamid’s membership peaked in from 1939 until the ‘60s, Klein says, when close to 1,000 Jewish men were part of the municipal firefighting force. "A lot of them had trained as lawyers or doctors," NYFD Battalion Chief Paul Tauber told Hadassah magazine in 2002, "but joining up with the civil service was the only way to get a paycheck every week." In 1950, a small group of members headed north in search of land to build summer homes. They discovered an old Boy Scout camp on the shores of Lake Waubeeka in Danbury, in the shadow of Moses Mountain, and purchased a large plot as Lake Tormid, Inc. in 1951. By the ‘70s, as the firefighters began to retire, the houses on stilts had become year-round residences. The Lake Waubeeka Association is currently the largest private land-owner in the City of Danbury. Only one of the original firefighter-founders, Mac Pearlman, still lives in the community, says longtime resident and Bronx native Dave Zwang, whose parents purchased a plot of land in 1952 for $2,500. But several descendants of the “originals” live in Lake Waubeeka, whose streets are named for the founding families’ children. One, Carol Street, is named for Carol Klein, who became the singer-songwriter Carol King. While no longer strictly a Jewish community, many residents are Jewish or Israeli, and the modern Orthodox Congregation Mount Moses operates during the summer and High Holidays. Today, some 150 of the 11,000 NYFD firefighters are Jewish, and Ner Tamid numbers 300 members, mostly retirees. The society has expanded to include dispatchers and emergency medical technicians. It is the largest in the national network of Shomrim societies, Jewish fraternal organizations affiliated with municipal public-safety departments. Comments? Email cindymindell.com.