Thursday, June 08, 2006
Chabad still feuds over who's boss
The touchy question of which Chabad family - the Borensteins or the Burstons - is authorized to run Jewish outreach programs in Orange County on behalf of their Hasidic movement seemed to be settled.
Pesach and Chana Burston are the valid representatives, a spokesman for the worldwide organization declared in a story about the Monroe couple in the Sunday Record on May 28.
But that statement has incurred the wrath of the Rabbi Yakov Borenstein and his wife, Hindy - installed as Chabad emissaries in Poughkeepsie 20 years ago - and reopened an ugly internal spat between them and their organization leaders.
It's a tangled fight over turf and legitimacy that predates the Burstons' arrival in 2004 and that the Borensteins are waging, in an almost identical fashion, with another Chabad couple in Woodstock.
The gist is that Chabad leaders say Yakov Borenstein is a renegade and irritant they fired several years ago for outlandish behavior. They drove home the point a week ago with a letter saying Borenstein - along with three other rabbis - can no longer use the Chabad-Lubavitch name.
Borenstein - who has installed his nephew in Goshen to represent Chabad in Orange County - disputes nearly everything his critics say, even that he was ever fired. He claims his attempts to bring the matter to a neutral rabbinical court have been rebuffed.
"You can't just tell me, 'Close down your shop,'" Borenstein says, referring to Rabbi Yisroel Rubin, the Chabad regional director in Albany. "He doesn't pay me."
His defense is a 2004 letter from the Beth Din (rabbinical court) of Brooklyn, which prohibits Rubin from appointing emissaries in Orange County and bars the Burstons from settling there until a neutral court rules.
Chabad spokesman Zalman Shmotkin replies that the Brooklyn Crown Heights court is a neighborhood panel with no jurisdiction over Chabad.
The upshot? Orange County has two Chabads, one run by the Burstons, the other by Yakov's nephew Rabbi Meir Borenstein and his wife, Rivkie. Each runs its own Hebrew schools, camps and Jewish activities and followers, regardless of what the other side says.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/06/08/news-camborenstein-06-08.html
The touchy question of which Chabad family - the Borensteins or the Burstons - is authorized to run Jewish outreach programs in Orange County on behalf of their Hasidic movement seemed to be settled.
Pesach and Chana Burston are the valid representatives, a spokesman for the worldwide organization declared in a story about the Monroe couple in the Sunday Record on May 28.
But that statement has incurred the wrath of the Rabbi Yakov Borenstein and his wife, Hindy - installed as Chabad emissaries in Poughkeepsie 20 years ago - and reopened an ugly internal spat between them and their organization leaders.
It's a tangled fight over turf and legitimacy that predates the Burstons' arrival in 2004 and that the Borensteins are waging, in an almost identical fashion, with another Chabad couple in Woodstock.
The gist is that Chabad leaders say Yakov Borenstein is a renegade and irritant they fired several years ago for outlandish behavior. They drove home the point a week ago with a letter saying Borenstein - along with three other rabbis - can no longer use the Chabad-Lubavitch name.
Borenstein - who has installed his nephew in Goshen to represent Chabad in Orange County - disputes nearly everything his critics say, even that he was ever fired. He claims his attempts to bring the matter to a neutral rabbinical court have been rebuffed.
"You can't just tell me, 'Close down your shop,'" Borenstein says, referring to Rabbi Yisroel Rubin, the Chabad regional director in Albany. "He doesn't pay me."
His defense is a 2004 letter from the Beth Din (rabbinical court) of Brooklyn, which prohibits Rubin from appointing emissaries in Orange County and bars the Burstons from settling there until a neutral court rules.
Chabad spokesman Zalman Shmotkin replies that the Brooklyn Crown Heights court is a neighborhood panel with no jurisdiction over Chabad.
The upshot? Orange County has two Chabads, one run by the Burstons, the other by Yakov's nephew Rabbi Meir Borenstein and his wife, Rivkie. Each runs its own Hebrew schools, camps and Jewish activities and followers, regardless of what the other side says.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/06/08/news-camborenstein-06-08.html
Comments:
awww are you jealous of chabad? why just because they get more baal teshuvos and help more people get back to judaism?!!
Comment Credit ---This article posted by 
: June 11, 2006 9:13 PM
: June 11, 2006 9:13 PM
chabad is great they make A very big kiddush hashem
Comment Credit ---This article posted by : June 11, 2006 9:53 PM
: June 11, 2006 9:53 PM
Chabad is the best almost every baal teshuva chabad made.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by : June 11, 2006 9:58 PM
: June 11, 2006 9:58 PM
no matter what negativities anyone has to say about chabad, when these same people travel on vacation or for business to the farthest corners of the world, and they are in need of a mikva, or kosher food, a minyan, etc..these same people run looking for chabad.
besides giving credit where credit is due, a nice hafty donation is what is due too.
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besides giving credit where credit is due, a nice hafty donation is what is due too.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by : June 15, 2006 9:45 PM
: June 15, 2006 9:45 PM
