Shul Daze

Published on: July 24th, 2011 | Last updated: February 12, 2016 | Written by: GasAxe

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More than just another synagogue that went bust, but one with enough drama for a feature length movie and a series of matching court battles.

The first court battle came when it came to light the rabbi had his fingers in the cookie jar and was handing out cookies to his friends and family. That got sorta solved and they got a new rabbi, but the old rabbi was still in the picture since he was signatory to way too many legal documents pertaining to the shul.

Attendance had been dropping off for years and eventually the board of directors decided it was time to throw in the tallis. They found a church with sufficient cash that was looking for a new home, so they started working on the sale.

"Not so fast!" said yet another rabbi. "You (the board of directors) don’t have the right to sell your own property, when you should just give it to me," he continued.

The case played out in a beis din, but never really went anywhere. It went to civil court after that where several years later, it’s still sitting in limbo.

Since then, the Department of Buildings has condemned the shul. It sits empty with an uncertain future.

I guess the way they look at it is: "there’s only a few million dollars at stake, so what’s the rush?"

Comments

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