A big battle that has been simmering within the Bialystoker Synagogue for many months is now out in the open.
Today the New York Post has the story:
A Manhattan judge was slapped with a $25 million lawsuit for his role in the potential sale of lucrative property adjoining a landmark institution once run by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Fellow board members of the Bialystoker Synagogue are suing their president, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shlomo Hagler, over a dispute involving an L-shaped lot at Delancey Street and Bialystoker Place and that’s been owned by the orthodox congregation since 1987. In the suit, Baruch Singer and Lenny Greher claim that Hagler, the synagogue’s rabbi, Zvi Romm, and the chairman of its housing fund are barred from selling the property at 15-17 Bialystoker Place based on an April 2012 ruling by a Brooklyn rabbinical court. A source close to the litigation told The Post the suit comes after the synagogue sold off a 127-unit affordable-housing building it owns on an adjacent lot for $28 million in January.
That affordable housing complex mentioned in the story is the Orenstein senior building, which was previously owned by the United Jewish Council of the East Side. More to come next week…
