At Sixth Street, Jew vs. Jew

State Supreme Court judge rules in favor of new members, for now, in their battle against old-timers at East Village shul.

In the fight for control at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue, Round One has gone to new members who say they’re trying to rejuvenate the Orthodox East Village shul.

Nearly three months after longtime congregants said they prevailed in an election of new board members, New York Civil Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled at an April 20 preliminary hearing for a Temporary Restraining Order against the old-timers. The ruling reinstates the previous synagogue board — a mix of old-timers and those who sided with the new members — pending further review in a hearing later this month.

The battle at Sixth Street first  surfaced three months ago when longtime members tried to strip the new ones of their voting rights — claiming that they neither attended services nor lived in the neighborhood. The new members — some of them recruited by Rabbi Simon Jacobson, whose Meaningful Life Center is housed at the shul — shot back that they were reviving a shul on its last legs.

At the end of the Feb. 7 election, a board comprised entirely of old members — led by 2nd Avenue Deli owner Jack Lebewohl — claimed victory.

fter the election,  “the new members … went to a judge and said these guys basically violated their own constitution,” said Matthew Pace, the former and now reinstated chairman of the board, who sides with the new members. “They ran a sham election and it should be overturned.”

“Jack [Lebewohl] has created an ‘us against them [situation],’” Pace continued. “Whereas, the other side just wanted to be involved.”  Continue reading…