__________________ Merrick _________________
CoMMUNITy UPDATE Infections as of June 6
8,252
Infections as of May 28 8,236
$1.00 $1.00
HERALD
Community says goodbye to super
Teen receives Roger Rees Award
Flags raised in North Merrick
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Vol. 24 No. 24
JUNE 10 - 16, 2021
Finished at Hofstra, and he’s all of 18 At home, Jackrel is a tinkerer. He recently renovated a 1957 television to working condition, As students crossed the stage complete with Roku streaming. at Hofstra University’s gradua- While he enjoys watching some tion commencement last month, shows that are “appropriate” for they marked the conclusion of the TV, such as “The Twilight their academic careers before Zone,” “I have Phineas and Ferb taking the first steps into profes- running on a TV from 1957 — sional ones. At just 18, Jason that shouldn’t exist, but I made it Jackrel was the youngest stu- exist.” dent in the crowd to do so. From scratch, Jackrel also Jackrel graduatdesigned a hearted with a computer shaped necklace engineering degree affixed with LEDs from Hofstra and that can flash in will soon move to response to music the opposite coast playing around the to work in Silicon wearer. He impleValley, his first mented Bluetooth major foray into a capability in a job. It’s not Jack- ChAD JACkREl Hyundai and rel’s first time bust- Jason’s father decked out his eleci n g t h e c u r ve, tric scooter with though: He accelerlights as well. ated through elementary and “Ideas for me are very spontahigh school, before attending neous,” Jackrel said. “It’s just, Hofstra at 15. ‘This is what we’re gonna do “When I was a kid, it was like today.’” I’d be handed a laptop and told, “Our garage has turned into a ‘OK, go have fun!’” Jackrel said. workshop,” said Jason’s father, “Sometimes I’d find some old Chad, who works for IBM. stuff in the closet and ask, “Our house has been taken ‘What’s this thing?’ And it would over by electronic parts,” added be an old computer that I his mother, Amy, with a laugh. installed Windows XP on — at 5, When Jason started kinderthat’s the coolest thing ever. Now, that’s like every day.” Continued on page 23
By ANDREW GARCIA agarcia@liherald.com
Courtesy Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District
St. Baldrick’s was back Mepham junior Nick Dato raised $250 for the St. Baldrick’s Chop Your Locks charity event. After it was canceled last year, students returned to the gym to have their heads shaved on May 27. Story, more photos, Page 3.
Holocaust survivor celebrates 100th birthday in Bellmore By ANDREW GARCIA agarcia@liherald.com
The party for Theresa Mermelstein’s 100th birthday in Bellmore on June 4 was a massive celebration, with family, friends and guests of honor in abundance — despite a downpour. For Mermelstein, though, reaching the milestone is nothing short of a “miracle.” In 1944, Mermelstein, a young Czechoslovakian Jew, survived a
year inside Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and deadliest of the Nazi concentration camps. There she was separated from much of her family, including her mother and grandparents. She escaped when the camp was liberated in 1945. The memories of that dark period still dredge up sharp emotions for Mer melstein, who fought back tears while recounting them. “It’s a miracle I survived a year in a concentration
camp,” she told the Herald. “God is good to me.” “For a year, every morning and night I walked to the camp, dirty, barefoot,” she said. “But I survived. It’s a miracle.” When Theresa Gruenberger, known to family and friends as Terry, arrived in America in 1948, she didn’t speak English, she said. In Brooklyn, she met Jakob Mermelstein, whom she Continued on page 7
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ur garage has turned into a workshop.