Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on June 8, 2017

The Home of the Sages property on Bialystoker Place. Photograph: J. Oliver Conroy.

Anew lawsuitis only the latest sign of an epic power struggle within theHome of the Sages of Israel, atiny Lower East Side synagogue. Thehouse of worshipsnondescript and rundownbuilding on Bialystoker Placehas become thesubjectof a ferocious real estate battle between different factions,each claimingto be the synagogues lawful representative.

In a suit filed two weeks ago only the latest in a mounting pile of litigation members of the Orthodox Jewish synagogues small congregation allege that Rabbi Samuel Aschkenazi, who despite his title, is not the rabbi for Home of the Sages, is attempting to sell the property out from under them to real estate developer Peter Fine and then split the $13 million profit with Friends of Mosdot Goor, aGererHasidicgroupunconnected to the synagogue.

Theplaintiffs allege that in 2014Aschkenazi agreed to sell the synagogue property to Fine without consulting the members of the congregation, who are mainly elderly Lower East Side residents. According to the suit, Aschkenazi, the now-disputed president of Home of the Sages (there is a different pulpit rabbi who attends to the members spiritual needs), does not have legal standing to sell the property.

Peter Fine, a wheeling-dealingNew York real estate developer andoccasional Broadway producer,wantsto buyHome of the Sages and several adjacent properties,including air rights for the unrelated Bialystoker Synagogue,so he can build housing units, according to a 2015 New York Times piece. The property Fine proposes to buyfor $13 million was,according to the suit, independently appraised at $42 million, and those opposed to the sale describe the suspiciously low price as a wholly insufficient firesale.

Signs on the building identify it as Home of the Sages of Israel and New East Side Nursing Home, Formerly Home of the Sages. Photo: J. Oliver Conroy.

Fine, who is not named in thelatestsuit, declined to comment. Another New York real estate player, the controversial landlordBaruch Singer, has been among those lobbyingagainst the sale. Singer, who grew up on the Lower East Side and is the son of the former rabbi of the nearby Bialystoker Synagogue,toldthe Times in 2015 thathis opposition to the sale was motivated byan interest in protectingthe Lower East Sides Jewish heritage.

The Home of the Sages was founded in 1939,accordingto Jewish Week. The synagogue is a time capsule of sorts a relic of an earlier time when the Lower East Side was dotted with tiny storefront synagogues calledshtiebels.

In a statement quoted by the Times, Fine cast doubt on Singers altruisticmotives and suggested he waseyeing the real estateforhimself. Singer could not be reached for comment in time for publication.

New York not-for-profit law requires that transactions of real estate owned by religious corporations meet two tests, according to attorney Frank Carone of Abrams Fensterman, who is representing the plaintiffsofthe latest suit. Is the transaction or sale price fair or reasonable? Does the transaction further the interests of the nonprofit?

Those questions cannot be answered until a court determines once and for all wholawfully represents Home of the Sages, saidCarone. He said hisclients are not opposed to selling thepropertyper se, but want to make sure that the sale price is fair and the sale represents the interests of the congregation.

The suit also alleges that last year Aschkenazi, in a belated attempt to createthe illusion that congregants supported the sale, bused 17 people from Brooklyn and New Jersey to a sham Homeof the Sages meeting, where they retroactivelyvoted toapprove the property sale and the distribution of the proceeds to Aschkenazi and Friends of Mosdot Goor. Many of the Bus Congregation members had never stepped foot onto the Property before the sham meeting, according to the suit, and many are affiliates of the Goor sect, puppets of Rabbi Aschkenaziwhostand to gain a financial windfall in the event [of] the sale.

More commonly transliterated as Ger, Goor is a Hasidic dynasty based in Jerusalem described as the largest and most powerful in Israel in a 2016 Haaretz article with followers in Brooklyn and Lakewood, New Jersey. Friends of Mosdot Goor likely plans to use its $10 million share of the sale to build a synagogue in Israel, according to a legal filing previously mentioned by the Times. Goor could not be reached for comment, nor could the individual members of the Bus Congregation named as defendants in the suit.

The latest lawsuit.

As a replacement place of worship, Aschkenazihasoffered the patrons of the Home of the Sages use of a synagogue located in his Queens home in exchange for$48,000 in annualrent.(In legal petitionscited by the Times,Aschkenazi described his $3 million cut of the sale as an endowmentfor Home of the Sages, which would be used to fund the replacement synagogue.)

There is a key problem with this scenario, however: Orthodox Jews cannotuse motor transportation on the Sabbath,making it impossible for the Lower East Sidepatrons of Home of the Sages to get to services each week.

The suitalsoalleges thatin the lease agreement for the replacement synagogue, Aschkenazis wife,Rathma Bithya Aschkenazi, who signed as landlord, used her maiden name in order to conceal her relationship with Aschkenazi.

Aschkenazi, who could not be reached for comment, is already the subject of an unresolvedclass action lawsuitalleging he used the Home of the Sages name to perpetrate years of charity fraud. Angry former donors filed a lawsuit in 2015 arguing that Aschkenazi pocketed thousands of dollars a year through a misleading fundraising newsletter. The newsletter purported to support a nursing home for elderly and destitute Jewish scholars; although the Home of the Sages property was once used for that purpose, the last sages moved out or passed away in the mid-90s, and the Home of the Sages now leases space to an unrelated for-profit nursing home.

Yet the Home of the Sages was raising some $500,000 a year from donors, theForwardreportedin 2015, citing tax filings. When the charities bureau of the New York state attorney generals office opened an investigation, Aschkenazi purportedly fled to Israel to escape prosecution shortly after also being served papers by federal agents.

Attorney David Jaraslowiczof Jaroslawicz & Jaros described the entire affair as riddled with conflicts of interest, inconsistencies, and red flags.The best disinfectant is a little sunshine,he said, paraphrasing Justice Louis Brandeis.

Jaraslowiczisrepresenting members of the Home of the Sages opposed to the sale in an earlier pro bono case. (Frank Carone of Abrams Fensterman, who filed the recent lawsuit against Aschkenazi, said his firms case and Jaraslowiczs have a common interest. He described his suitas narrowly focused on the question of wholawfully speaks for Home of the Sages.)

Jaraslowiczbelieves Aschkenazi was using Home of the Sages as a personal slush fund. He said that based on his review of Home of the Sages 990s mandatory charity filings Aschkenazi and others were pulling large amounts of money out of what was supposed to be a religious corporation and giving it to an assortment of groups, including the private school Aschkenazis grandchildren attended.

The principal of CKCM Corporation, the operator of the for-profit nursing home that leases space from Home of the Sages, was a business partner of Aschkenazis son, now deceased, according to Jaraslowicz and the lawsuit filed by Abrams Fensterman. The suit also alleges that Aschkenazi collects the rent and retains those payments for his own personal use without remitting them to Home of the Sages.

New York not-for-profit law requires that the sale of property owned by religious corporations be approved by the state attorney general and the courts;Aschkenazi and Peter Fine have hired a rapid succession of law firms issuing confusing and sometimes contradictory motions to push through approval for theunusuallycheap sale.

The developer has been filing a suit a month trying to get around the original suit, added Jaraslowicz. [Fine] realized he isnt going to win the original suit. He keeps changing his positions and is trying to gain some mileage out of flooding us with paper.

The law firms involved are unusually high-powered for a case involving such a modest real estatetransaction. To press their case with the state attorney general, Aschkenazi and Fine hired David Boies, one of the most renowned and expensive lawyers in the country.

Unusually, therecent suit brought byAbrams Fenstermannames Goldberg Rimberg & Weg and Fisher & Fisher, two law firms which have represented Aschkenazi and the pro-sale faction,as defendants. The suit alleges they represented Home of the Sages without the plaintiffs knowledge or consent.

A source with knowledge of attorney Andrew Fishers thinking said he read the decision to name the law firms as parties as overreaching and unnecessary.

Many of the parties involved could not be reached for comment, despite repeated attempts.

This case doesnt pass the smell test, said Jaraslowicz.If you dig into it, youll faint from the stench.

See the article here:

$13 Million Synagogue Sale Threatened by Power Struggle of Biblical Proportions - Bedford + Bowery

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