Thursday, April 25, 2019
‘Hired Goons,’ Intimidating Rottweiler Cited In Synagogue Lockout Lawsuit
Hired goons. A rottweiler. Sabotage. Coney Island.
If you think this sounds like the plot from a classic crime epic about Brooklyn, you’d be right. But also these things relate to an ongoing lawsuit alleging one group’s “takeover” of a synagogue in the sleepy neighborhood of Seagate, at the far western edge of Coney Island.
The suit pits one faction of Kneses Israel of Seagate against another — though both sides have appeared to challenge the other’s legitimacy — and also is a skirmish between two Jewish sects. As reported by Spectrum News, the suit is rooted in an arrangement the synagogue made with a local yeshiva, renting out part of its building to them about a dozen years ago. The synagogue is part of the Chabad Hasidic movement; the yeshiva is Satmar Hasidic.
The synagogue has endured significant troubles in the intervening years since granting the lease to the yeshiva. In 2012, it was flooded during Superstorm Sandy. Two years ago, during Passover, a fire nearly destroyed its main sanctuary.
The synagogue told the yeshiva it could not renew the yeshiva’s lease on the portion of the building it was renting. The school has refused to leave.
But after the synagogue elected a new president last year, the old president gave the yeshiva a new lease. The yeshiva then began locking the Kneses Israel congregants out of their half of the building.
The yeshiva has called for the arrest of Rabbi Chaim Brikman, the Chabad emissary who is the apparent leader of Kneses Israel.
https://forward.com/fast-forward/423221/synagogue-lawsuit-seagate-brooklyn-chabad-satmar/
If you think this sounds like the plot from a classic crime epic about Brooklyn, you’d be right. But also these things relate to an ongoing lawsuit alleging one group’s “takeover” of a synagogue in the sleepy neighborhood of Seagate, at the far western edge of Coney Island.
The suit pits one faction of Kneses Israel of Seagate against another — though both sides have appeared to challenge the other’s legitimacy — and also is a skirmish between two Jewish sects. As reported by Spectrum News, the suit is rooted in an arrangement the synagogue made with a local yeshiva, renting out part of its building to them about a dozen years ago. The synagogue is part of the Chabad Hasidic movement; the yeshiva is Satmar Hasidic.
The synagogue has endured significant troubles in the intervening years since granting the lease to the yeshiva. In 2012, it was flooded during Superstorm Sandy. Two years ago, during Passover, a fire nearly destroyed its main sanctuary.
The synagogue told the yeshiva it could not renew the yeshiva’s lease on the portion of the building it was renting. The school has refused to leave.
But after the synagogue elected a new president last year, the old president gave the yeshiva a new lease. The yeshiva then began locking the Kneses Israel congregants out of their half of the building.
The yeshiva has called for the arrest of Rabbi Chaim Brikman, the Chabad emissary who is the apparent leader of Kneses Israel.
https://forward.com/fast-forward/423221/synagogue-lawsuit-seagate-brooklyn-chabad-satmar/
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