Lubavitch Non-Messianists Win Court Battle

by Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Staff Writer

In the fight for control of 770 Eastern Parkway— the headquarters and heart of the Lubavitch movement, which has been the site of passionate and sometimes violent fights between messianists and non-messianists — a court decision last week has come down clearly on the side of the non-messianists.The strongly worded decision from Justice Ira Harkavy of New York State Supreme Court on Dec. 27 says that the only parties with the right to determine what happens at 770 are its owners, two of the movement’s central organizations, Agudas Chasedei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch (Association of Chabad Chasidim and the Lubavitch Educational Organization).The decision marks a victory for those in the movement who have been trying to marginalize the messianists — who believe in proclaiming the last, late Lubavitch rebbe as the messiah —since the faction began asserting itself when the rebbe was debilitated by a stroke in 1992, two years before he died. A spokesman for Agudas and Merkos, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, said, “We’re very gratified by the court’s decision. We’re pained by the events that led us here and still harbor hopes that those responsible will recognize the error of their ways.” [follow link for the rest]

Chabad messianists lose court ruling

The leadership of Chabad-Lubavitch has won the right to eject a messianist congregation from the movement’s main synagogue. New York State’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch and Agudas Chassidei Chabad, two of Chabad’s three main bodies, giving them the right to eject Congregation Lubavitch Inc. from the synagogue located in the basement of 770 and 784-788 Eastern Parkway, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The sites represent the worldwide headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch.Although the defendants have the right to appeal within 60 days, the ruling gives legal backing to the 15-year struggle to stifle the movement's messianist wing.
The suit involves a conflict that began in 2004, when Merkos and Agudas sued individuals connected with the messianist congregation for defacing a plaque Merkos installed outside the synagogue that used the term “of blessed memory" to refer to the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Chasidic movement's longtime rebbe. The phrase offeneded those associated with Congregation Lubavitch Inc. who believe that Schneerson was the messiah, and thus is not technically dead.
In that first case, the court ruled in favor of Chabad’s leadership, declaring in June 2006 that Merkos and Agudas are the rightful owners of the entire property. The current suit was brought by Merkos and Agudas in order to give them the authority to physically remove the opposing congregation, and its four gabbais, or trustees, from the premises.

A Shameful Appointment

The appointment of Dr. David Berger as head of the Yeshiva College Jewish Studies Department was addressed in Joel Shteir's article and Dr. David Berger's response in a previous issue of The Commentator. Dr. Berger, as we know, is the author of The Rebbe, The Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference, a screed against Lubavitch Chassidim. Shteir wrote that Dr. Berger's appointment was in conflict with "cultural open-mindedness" and "acceptance."

This is not an issue of closed or open-mindedness. The real issue is that Dr. Berger is a promoter of division whose radical views should not be legitimized by our university. Yeshiva University has brought upon itself shame and disgrace by appointing an advocate of baseless hatred.

Dr. Berger begins by claiming we are trying to "intimidate and silence him." That he should attempt to paint himself as a victim is absurd. As an academic, he is free to express his opinions, but that does not mean that those opinions deserve respect or that Yeshiva University should reward an advocate of such views with a department chairmanship. Freedom of speech is a two-way street. When you voice your offensive vision, don't call it "intimidation" when people respond to it. Dr. Berger was even given the last word in The Commentator a few weeks ago.

I have been to Chabad Houses in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Israel and China and never once met anyone who says the Rebbe is "pure divinity." That is pure poppycock. I have furthermore been to many Chabad Houses where the Rebbe is not thought to be the Messiah. Undoubtedly there are those who espouse that view, but to vilify an entire Chassidic sect with roots to the Ba'al Shem Tov is nothing less than abhorrent. No organization has done more good for Judaism around the world, literally bringing Torah and Mitzvot to Jews no matter where they are physically or religiously. Chabad is not "hijacking [our] religion." It is driving Judaism around the world and inviting so many to return to it. Dr. Berger ignores the unparalleled and multi-faceted good done by Chabad; to see in Chabad an "existential threat to the Jewish religion" not only ignores the obvious opposite reality, but enters Dr. Berger into the realm of fringe fanaticism that he himself decries.

Dr. Berger argues that there is a need to ask questions of a Lubavitch Chassid who serves as a "rabbi, a dayyan, a Jewish Studies principal, and, in the context of avodah zorah, a shochet, a sofer, and a wine producer." In the context of avodah zorah? No such context exists! His own article is written in the context of unsubstantiated mistruths about a "very substantial number" of phantom Chassidim who view the Rebbe as the equivalent of Jesus.

The interrogation of Lubavitchers is unwarranted. Implementing this policy would accomplish nothing but harm many innocent people and devastate the unity of the Observant Jewish Community at a time when we desperately need to work together.
Dr. Berger has no right to demand that so many Lubavitch Chassidim be denied "automatic Orthodox legitimacy," when Lubavitchers are far more stringent than many of us in many facets of halacha and they include scholars in Jewish law and philosophy every bit as accomplished as Dr. Berger.

Bringing the issue closer to home, he further states in his article that he does not see "the need to ask questions of Lubavitch students" at YU, but only because we don't ask questions of those not "fully committed" to Orthodoxy. His condescending comparison between Lubavitch and nonobservant students is both naive and offensive. He further equates Lubavitch Chassidim to Conservative Jewry when he says that he does not advocate anything "more draconian than the policies maintained by moderate Modern Orthodox Jews toward traditional Conservative Jews," as if the two groups are remotely comparable. Ignoring semantics for all practical purposes, this proposal is very close to a threat of excommunication. Dr. Berger's words are a profound personal insult to those committed Orthodox Jewish students affiliated with Chabad Lubavitch - an insult that demands an apology.

In light of the comments made by Dr. Berger in his article, one can only imagine the "analytical and non-polemical" classroom discussion in his messianism course at the Revel Graduate School. It is beyond imagination to think that his extremist analysis of Chabad does not make its way into the classroom, and is not accorded special deference, as the professor's point of view.

As members of the "orphaned generation," we students of Yeshiva University should applaud "all those who have thus far been silent"- those who have refused to join Dr. Berger's foolish anti-Lubavitch crusade, and who refuse to recognize him as the arbiter of Orthodox legitimacy.

Tzvee's Take

I have recast the Forward's headline for one of this week's stories in accord with my more accurate view of what is transpiring.Professor David Berger published an attack on Lubavitch in a full blown religious polemic. Instead of reconsidering, recalling and retracting his vitriol, he now is republishing his book as a paperback. And he now is receiving full support from Yeshiva University as head of Jewish Studies at the school.My case against Berger simply put is -- who appointed him head of the holy office of the grand inquisition? His book is stage one of a true Jihad. Who asked him to issue a fatwa against Lubavitch messianists?The answer now appears to be - Yeshiva University promotes and supports his outrageous crusade.Berger calls for the removal of the LMs from all Jewish communal positions worldwide. What is next Dr. Berger? Indeed.
Yeshiva U. Brings On Critic of ChabadMarissa Brostoff Wed. Oct 24, 2007Rabbi David Berger, a historian who is a sharp critic of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, has been appointed head of Jewish studies at Yeshiva University’s undergraduate college in a move that has ruffled some feathers on the campus.Writing in the college’s student paper, the Commentator, Josh Shteir, a senior at the school and a co-president of the Chabad Club on campus, argued that Berger’s “intolerance” of Chabad is unacceptable at Y.U. The university is affiliated with the Modern Orthodox movement but welcomes Orthodox Jews who practice differently.“How am I, a student at Y.U., as well as someone with a strong connection to the Lubavitch movement, supposed to understand this appointment and its apparent conflict with the cultural open-mindedness espoused by the University?” he wrote in a missive directed at university administrators.Y.U. announced last fall that it would hire Berger, who had been a history professor at Brooklyn College for 37 years and had taught part time at Y.U. for almost as long, as a full-time faculty member. He was appointed to the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and later to the Jewish studies department at Yeshiva College, Y.U.’s undergraduate division. Then, as now, some students publicly objected.Yosef Levine, alumni president of Y.U.’s Chabad group and a 1999 graduate of its business school, said that he campaigned against Berger’s appointment last year because Berger was inappropriately hostile regarding the subject of Chabad.According to Levine, the trouble began about two years ago when Berger, who occasionally led Sabbath services at Y.U., “dove into ruthless soliloquizing against Chabad” at a post-service “shmooze,” disturbing even non-Chabad students and leading several to walk out.The debate is centered on Berger’s well-known critiques of the block of Chabad adherents who believe that Menachem Schneerson, the late Chabad leader, is the messiah. Berger, who is Modern Orthodox himself, claims that this belief is tantamount to heresy. In his 2001 book, “The Rebbe, The Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference,” Berger argued that Judaism rejects the idea that the messiah can be a deceased person. That belief, he wrote, has differentiated Judaism from Christianity for 2,000 years. He censures the Chabad movement and the Orthodox establishment at large for what he sees as their lack of outrage in response to the messianic elements in the Lubavitch community.Berger responded to Shteir’s article with an opinion piece of his own, in which he claimed that Shteir was taking part in a Chabad campaign to silence critics. “[My position on Chabad] is not closed-minded, unless Mr. Shteir believes that open-mindedness requires the abolition of all theological boundaries defining the Jewish religion,” Berger wrote.Both articles delve into complex hermeneutics, as do many of the dozens of reader responses posted on the Commentator Web site.In an interview with the Forward, Berger said he was unconcerned about the controversy, which he called “a tempest in a teapot.” He suggested that Y.U. is big enough for both Chabad students and their critics.“Yeshiva College [does not ask student applicants] about personal beliefs, and I don’t think Lubavitcher students should be asked either,” he said.Chabad officials agreed with Berger that the controversy should not be overplayed.“While we don’t agree with Berger, this is not a Lubavitcher issue — it’s a Y.U. issue,” a spokesman for the group said.

Restoring Eldridge’s Future

ake one of the tours being offered every Sunday by the Eldridge Street Project. For a suggested donation of five dollars you’ll learn a lot about the ancient history of the Lower East Side: How, in 1886, a deli king named Isaac Gellis (his outfit was eventually bought out by Hebrew National) and a banker named Sender Jarmulowsky led the first Eastern European Jews who had settled on the Lower East Side to build the first neighborhood Synagogue that was not a converted church.

They hired the services of the architectural firm Herter Brothers, which had been established only two years earlier to create more enlightened tenement houses. The Herters revved up the exotica to produce a hodgepodge of Gothic, Romanesque, and Moorish styles, which the clients absolutely loved. News accounts of the day tell of such overcrowding at the Eldridge Street Synagogue (or Synagogue of Congregation K’hal Adath Jeshurun im Anshe Lubtz) during the High Holidays that year, that the mounted police was called in.

Our tour Docent, Jane Herman, is knowledgeable, patient and friendly. We follow her, along with three guys from Argentina. Behind us, small tour groups continue to form at a respectable pace. The Eldridge is a regular stop on every tourist map of the city.

Herman takes us to the main sanctuary to see the wooden floors. There are deep recesses in the wood, marking where the pews used to be. We stand by the red velvet-padded ark, at the top of a stately staircase. In front of it, an old fashioned lectern is towering above the congregation in the distance and the choir’s bullpen right below.

The Eldridge congregation remained affluent until after the first world war, when the new Jewish middle class discovered Brooklyn and the Eldridge crowd began to shrink. Sometime during the 1920s they stopped using the second floor sanctuary, staying, instead, in the downstairs hall, a bit below street level.

In 1979, Professor Gerard Wolfe photographed the sanctuary which had been closed off for fifty years. He found it in a sad state of disrepair and organized the Friends of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, who set out to collect the needed funds, first for emergency repairs, to prevent the collapse of the building, and then to register it as a national historic landmark (a designation it received in 1996) and raise the federal, state and private funds to restore it. In 1988, author and Television personality Bill Moyers praised the Eldridge Project to Marvin Greisman, saying the Jews who built the synagogue paid a price “so we could live in a free society today.”

This coming Hanukkah, says Jane, the project will be complete. We stare at the main sanctuary which is still in dreadful shape, with missing glass panes, broken wall panels, rotting wood floors. Our combined gazes express intense doubt.

We ask to see the downstairs area, where Jane has told us the Eldridge congregation is temporarily situated in what used to be the rabbi’s chambers (it had its own hearth), while extensive work is being done to restore the large hall intended to serve as the permanent active synagogue. Jane tells us we can’t go down there, because it isn’t safe. How many people pray there? Not more than ten or fifteen, she says.

• • •

On a drizzly Shabbat morning a group of some thirty Jewish men and ten women crowd a small room painted in cheerful yellow in the basement of the old Eldridge Street Synagogue. The healthy size of the congregation is nothing to scoff at on the Lower East Side. Rabbi Israel Stone, a tall and bearded, pleasant mannered young man in a long, black silk coat, is an able leader.

But the space, where tots and their mothers once played during services, is physically too small for Rabbi Stone’s flock. The Project initially provided an attractive, properly suspended, silk mechitzah curtain, to separate the women from the men, but either the rabbi or a member of the congregation removed it and threw a wool blanket over a clothesline tied to pipes on either side of the small enclosure. “Ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” mutters Prof. Mark Mirsky, an uprooted Bostonian who is a member of the Board of Directors of the Eldridge Street Project.

The seating is strictly fold-up chairs (padded), and when you get up to stretch your limbs moving around the room is greatly restricted. It’s a bit like trying to pray in a crowded elevator. According to Rabbi Yitzhak Reisman, who has for many years attended the Eldridge minyan, being forced out of their regular sanctuary downstairs until the summer is a serious blow to this fast-growing congregation. The change will likely result in attendance dropping. Already, he points out, many of the original members have stopped coming. Of the current participants, more than half are relative newcomers who have been attracted to the place by Rabbi Stone. A member of the Lubavitch movement, Stone has been able to use its resources to fill up the room, says Reisman, who adds that in the process the manner and timbre of the minyan has changed.

Rabbi Stone was invited to take the mantle by the man whose name is associated more than any other with the Eldridge, and whose spirit continues to influence events there. Known affectionately as The Judge, the late Paul Bookson, a former State Senator and New York State Supreme Court Justice who loved to regale his listeners at the Shabbat minyan with anecdotes from his many years of public service, was the force that kept alive the congregation, located on the distant margin of the Lower East Side. He was killed by a motorcycle outside the Brooklyn courthouse, in the fall of 2005.

For many years Bookson would invite young men from the neighborhood to lead the congregation in prayer and to assist him in running the shul. For a variety of reasons, the late judge found it more and more difficult to fill the position, and our understanding is that he asked Rabbi Kasriel Kastel of the Lubavitch Youth Organization, the supervising agency for many Lubavitch emissaries active in the New York Metropolitan Area, to send a rabbi who would serve the Eldridge congregation, with the proviso that he would not turn it into a Lubavitch enclave. Rabbi Kastel would not confirm or deny this information.

Many years earlier, in the mid 1980s, Judge Bookson, in his capacity as the elected President of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, signed a contract with the Eldridge Street Project, whose mission is to preserve the synagogue “as a site for historical reflection, aesthetic inspiration, and spiritual renewal.”

• • •

Amy Waterman, the soft-spoken director of the ESP, says the Project and the shul are both partners in the effort to make the restoration real. Simply put, Waterman asserts, “had it not been for the Project’s intervention, the Eldridge Street Synagogue would not be standing today.” She suggests that many other synagogues on the Lower East Side have shut their doors or were demolished due to constant water leaks and other defects in their construction. The collapsed Rumanian shul on Rivington Street was the most recent casualty.

Waterman plays down the fears of some members that the restoration work which forced the burgeoning congregation into its current tiny room will diminish the minyan irreparably. She says that just the opposite is true, the minyan “is actually going to grow,” since the downstairs “space is going to be so beautiful, like the sanctuary upstairs, and it will be more comfortable,” and sure to attract new members. Waterman also notes that when the restoration is complete, the downstairs women’s area will be much bigger, to accommodate the growing number of participating women.

But she readily acknowledges the discomfort to members of the congregation as the restoration project proceeds, and asks for patience, as this is only a temporary phase.

It isn’t clear whether the restoration project is operating at the pleasure of the congregation (as many members believe), or the other way around – the Project is the reigning authority and the congregation is a kind of preserve of authentic Jewish life on the Lower East Side.

Until the Judge’s untimely passing, everyone conceded that he was the elected voice of the congregation, with the authority to deal on their behalf with the Project’s leadership. His death has added a measure of ambiguity to the relationship and created a conflict within the minyan.

• • •

No one, including congregants who are in disagreement with the way the shul is being run, disputes the years of love and dedication which Mrs. Tova Bookson, the late judge’s widow, has invested in the synagogue. Indeed, after her husband’s passing she has increased her involvement and is present almost every Shabbat, setting up the Kiddush tables. Her ties to the place are as deep and as thick as her husband’s. Last March, Tova and her daughter, attorney Shoshana Bookson, were part of the festivities, as workmen in a cherry picker affixed Stars of David to the tips of the restored Moorish finials above the synagogue’s famous rose window.

“It’s fantastic, it’s amazing, it’s wonderful to think that this synagogue that was built in 1886 has had a functioning minyan for 120 years,” says Tova Bookson. She adds, “We embrace and love and welcome everybody in our shul. That’s the kind of congregation that we have and we are going to continue” to have. She praises the leadership of Rabbi Israel Stone. “Rabbi Stone is a very positive influence” and “a very dynamic rabbi.” She credits Stone with increasing the minyan on Shabbat and holidays and for giving “a wonderful Dvar Torah (sermon).”

Rabbi Stone says, “My job is to see to it that the minyan runs smoothly.” He would not comment on any other issues relating to this story.

Tova Bookson says it is no secret to anyone on the Lower East Side that “our family has been connected and has been [preserving] this synagogue.” She notes that the shul is run by an elected board, on which Shoshana serves as president. Is there, at this point, an officially elected President of the Eldridge Street Synagogue Congregation? Amy Waterman says, “Yes, Shoshana Bookson. Mrs. Bookson and her daughter informed us of the election conducted shortly after Judge Bookson’s death.”

Two ESP Board members we’ve asked say they do not know of a legitimate election which made Shoshana the Shul President, a position which rarely, if ever, falls to women in Orthodox synagogues, certainly not on the Lower East Side. (Although the Eldridge women were not kept from shouldering responsibility: Sarah Gellis signed business documents for the shul in 1909, Fruma Wolinsky headed the Ladies’ Auxiliary, and Betty Goodman was the congregation’s secretary for 20 years.) Elected or not, the synagogue under Shoshana Bookson pays Rabbi Stone’s salary and purchases the Kiddush provisions most every Shabbat, just as the late judge used to do.

According to Waterman, the Project is prevented from sponsoring the minyan. “Supporting religious functions outright would jeopardize our non-sectarian status and public funding.” She suggests that “individual Eldridge Street board members may have made contributions to assist from time to time, but not as representatives of ESP.”

Do the Booksons have in their possession 18 Torah scrolls taken from the synagogue for safe keeping?

ESP Board member David Sitzer, who used to read from the Torah at the Eldridge in the 1970’s, says he and Bookson discovered the scrolls, which were faded beyond use, in the main sanctuary's ark. The judge placed them in a bank vault for safe keeping.

The Booksons' claim to leadership was challenged last summer by several members of the congregation, who elected the Executive Committee of the Minyan Association.

On September 14, 2006, Minyan Association Chairman Arieh Liebesny sent a letter to Amy Waterman, copied to Tova Bookson, informing her of the formation of his committee and requesting a meeting to discuss conditions in the downstairs prayer hall.

On September 29, Liebesny received an email from Waterman, assuring him that “the Project is planning to schedule a meeting after the [holidays] to explain restoration plans, schedules, logistics, etc.” and adding, “We will certainly try to address the congregation’s concerns. I will be back in touch regarding date, time, etc.”

There was no further contact from Waterman, who says that, although she responded genially to the email, it does not mean that the Project has ever recognized the Minyan Association.

Instead, Liebesny received a letter dated September 27 and signed by Shoshana T. Bookson, on the stationery of her law firm, Shandell, Blitz, Blitz & Bookson, LLP, warning him: “Please be advised that your use of the name and identity of the Eldridge Street Synagogue as part of an association name as well as a website address is unauthorized and without any effect, legal or otherwise. … This letter constitutes a written warning to you to cease and desist the use of said name in your association as well as on the website. This letter further constitutes a written demand to immediately remove the Synagogue’s name from any association name and the website. Your failure to do so following this warning will result in the Synagogue pursuing full legal remedies available in both law and equity.”

“We want to become members of the congregation and take positions in running it,” says Reisman. “Members of the minyan want to be active in the operation of the shul. They want to be able to hold functions. They want to be able to raise funds, just like every other congregation.”

He adds that during the summer members of the Shabbat minyan wanted to conduct a Rosh Chodesh service (celebrating the new Lunar month) that fell on a weekday, and Tova Bookson denied them permission. They were told that the minyan meets only on Shabbat. “As far as I know, they can conduct services any time, but this is a question for Shoshana or Tova,” says Waterman. "Requests to assemble the congregation on occasions other than Shabbat and holidays will be considered on an individual basis by my mother, myself and the synagogue," emails Shoshana Bookson.

Rabbi Reisman is discouraged by the Project’s unwillingness to deal with his group. “After 10 years of praying here, and contributing several kiddushim each year, perhaps we’ll have to relocate to a more comfortable space and let the Booksons and the Project find other people to be their puppets,” he says angrily.
• • •

In recent weeks we’ve learned of a conversation between Director of Lubavitch Youth Organization Rabbi Shmuel Butman and the Booksons. As part of the messianist faction of Lubavitch, Butman gained world renown in 1993, when he invited the press to cover the coronation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who had suffered a stroke and was aphasic. We were told by congregants who participated in a meeting with Butman that he requested industrial peace from everyone involved, until after the project is finished.

Is the Project aware of Butman’s involvement? “Yes, and we do not believe that Rabbi Stone or anyone else was authorized to reach out to him,” says Waterman. “This was an infraction of the legal agreement between the Project and the congregation’s board.”

ESP Board member Nehemiah Reich says he doesn’t mind if Lubavitch takes over the shul. As far as he’s concerned, Lubavitch has provided the congregation with a steady and reliable minyan, and for that he is grateful.

But others, including one other member of the ESP Board, are livid over this new development. It’s clear that while they trust and admire Rabbi Stone, they are not happy to see Butman becoming involved.

• • •

With $14.5 million collected out of the projected $15.8 million needed for the restoration work, many in the neighborhood are eager to see the project reaching completion. Jane Herman and just about anyone else connected to the Eldridge Project explain the great difference between renovating a synagogue and restoring a national historic landmark building. The standards for the latter are far more stringent, and go well beyond simply fixing up the place.

“The medieval Sagrada de Familia in Barcelona is still incomplete, as is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan,” comments Waterman. Jane Herman points to the state-of-the-art, “green” heating and cooling systems installed in the sub-basement (which was dug below the original foundation), and the elevator and other wheelchair accessible facilities, in keeping with federal requirements.

Amy Waterman concedes that the project has seen its share of setbacks, including changing architects in mid project, the loss of the original building plans, which had to be replaced with a newly-redrawn set of plans, and, most crucially, economic ups and downs which affected fundraising.

When Marvin Greisman interviewed the original president of the Eldridge Street Project Roberta Brandes Gratz, in 1988, she predicted the landmark would open its doors to the public in the spring of 1990. The doors did open in 1991, but the grand scale opening is yet to come. “Celebration activities marking the completion and the 120th anniversary will take place all fall,” declares Amy Waterman, adding cheerfully, “Hope you’ll be there!”

We wouldn't miss it for the world!


© Yanover Consulting Inc.