Volunteers from the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn and the New York City Sanitation Department are seen with the retrieved tefillin. Photo: United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn.
New York City Sanitation Department employees helped a group of Brooklyn residents search for hours through heaps of garbage to find a pair of tefillin that were accidentally thrown in the trash,
After the religious items were mistakenly thrown away on Dec. 17, their owner, a rabbi in Williamsburg, contacted United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn to help track down the phylacteries.
The Jewish group reviewed security footage and saw that a New York City Sanitation truck picked up the trash on Monday. It immediately contacted the Sanitation Department’s Brooklyn North Chief Jarrit Scotti, who isolated the truck’s garbage from the other trash and told them that the truck was kept at the Varick Avenue transfer station.