Rabbi Mendy Hurwitz completes wrapping of the arm tefillin for M. Quentin Williams. Photo (c) Robert Kalfus
By Robert Kalfus
Former Yonkers resident Michael Quentin Williams recently addressed the Yonkers Police Dept. how to “train law enforcement how to serve better, not to police better.” At that meeting, Yonkers Police Dept.Chaplain Rabbi Mendy Hurwitz learned the facts of Quentin’s life: born and raised by a non-observant Jewish mother who soon after he was born, Quentin was abandoned by his biological Black father from St. Kitt’s, and then abandoned by his mother’s family. Quentin was raised by loving grandparents and supportive community members. Quentin was further supported by educators and coaches who saw quality, promise and greatness in him, and believing to him, helped him to succeed.
M. Quentin Williams’ story began with his mixed-race upbringing in New York poverty: Quentin attended and graduated from Yonkers’ Charles E. Groton High School, with activities in the National Honor Society; Football; Track & Field; and Swimming; won admission to Boston College with a Football scholarship and graduated from Boston College, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, where he was active in Varsity Football and Track. In the late 1980s following graduation, Quentin worked for two years as a bouncer at New York nightclubs, but prodded by a mentor, who told him that being a bouncer would not be his life’s career, Quentin applied to law school, and graduated with a law degree from St. John’s University School of Law, with a Juris Doctor law degree in 1991.
Starting in 1992 for almost four years, M. Quentin was a Special Agent for the FBI in New Haven, CT, investigating Federal criminal matters, and then worked as an Assistant US Attorney from 1995 to 1996 as a Trial Attorney in the Criminal Division. Quentin then moved into a career as an executive with the National Football League and the National Basketball Association.
At the Yonkers Police meeting conclusion, Rabbi Hurwitz asked Quentin if he had any Jewish education, or if he had had a Bar Mitzvah. Quentin’s answered “NO” to which Rabbi Hurwitz offered a Bar Mitzvah to him if he was interested. Quentin replied that he was interested! Quentin at age 56 had his Bar Mitzvah this past Sunday morning at the Chabad of Yonkers. A Bar Mitzvah means when young people taken upon themselves the responsibilities of learning and obeying the commandments of Jewish law, customs and observances. Girls have a Bat Mitzvah at age 12 due to their earlier maturation, and young Jewish boys have their Bar Mitzvah upon reaching age 13. Rabbi Hurwitz explained that things happen on G-d’s time schedule, and now was the appropriate time for Quentin’s Bar Mitzvah at age 56.
Rabbi Hurwitz draped a four fringed prayer tallit on Quentin’s broad shoulders, as he helped Quentin recite the prayers and explained the significance of the tallit’s four fringes. Quentin next donned the tefillin’s black boxes on his arm, and then his forehead, reciting the prayers and began the shacharit morning weekday prayers, led by Rabbi Mendy Hurwitz’s son, Chaim.
Concluding the morning prayers, Quentin spoke to the men and women who came to honor him. Visibly moved, at times stopping to wipe tears from his eyes or recover his composure to speak, Quentin said “I speak at this Bar Mitzvah in honor of my grandparents, who changed my life”, for the better. “It was difficult in the beginning. For the first five years of my life they did not accept me. My grandmother was born into foster care, and she was ashamed of the foster care in she grew up in Chicago. Her whole life, she was always trying to please people. And when she lived in Eastchester, she felt her neighbors would be very embarrassed by the fact that she had a black grandchild. We were not allowed to go over to their house. My grandfather, on the other hand, he lived with her, so he had to do what she said. He wanted to embrace me. And then my (younger) brother came along, when I was six years old, they embraced both of us. They turned 180 degrees. So in honor of them, and in honor of the humility shown by my grandmother, in being that second mother to us and being able to embrace us, it changed my life and it changed my brother’s life.”
Quentin thanked the many people who attended the Bar Mitzvah, including Jay Brustman, one of Quentin’s mentors who encouraged him; members of the Yonkers Police Dept.; Yonkers Police Dept. Commissioner John Mueller, and the many people who attended law school with him or served as US Federal Attorneys.
