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| This used to be the Young Israel of Oxford Circle |
Less than a year later it was sold by National Council of Young Israel to Bhuddists! It is now a temple for Avodah Zarah! A Bhuddha idol is now where an Aron Kodesh once stood!!
Other communities like Danville, VA demolished their shul building to prevent them from becoming churches. National Council of YOUNG ISRAEL couldn't miss an opportunity to make a buck even if it meant degrading a shul.
An officer of the former Young Israel of Oxford Circle told me NCYI knew exactly who they were selling to and what it was to be used for!!
Did any rabbi of Young Israel's Vaad Halacha approve the sale of a Young Israel shul building to be used for Buddhist idol worship?!?!? (Every Orthodox rabbi considers Buddhism to be Avodah Zarah)
What A Man of Principles did in this situation (from the obituary of Rabbi David B. Hollander on www.Chabad.org)
When the Mount Eden Jewish Center closed, Rabbi David B. Hollander was owed a large sum for his salary and assorted services. Seeking to repay their beloved rabbi, who had a family to support, the synagogue’s board members decided to sell the building.
But an organization that Rabbi Hollander was ideologically opposed to offered the only hope of the synagogue being able to repay the rabbi. Knowing that he would not approve of the sale, the board members solicited, and received, approbations from several rabbinical authorities.
True to form, Rabbi Hollander refused to sanction the transaction.
“Gentleman,” Rabbi Hollander told the group, “you do not owe me anything.”
Board members exited the room misty-eyed, in awe that the rabbi they came to revere made such a sacrifice.
“He was a man of tremendous principles,” said Rabbi Fabian Schoenfeld of the Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills. “He had no doubts in them, and tried to bring them into practice.”
What's their side of the story?
ReplyDeleteLerner claimed the buyers said they were going to live in the house. That's difficult to believe since the status of the building on record at the time of the sale was as a house of worship. Besides, according to Rabbi David Feldman of Teaneck:
ReplyDeleteThere are more pointed considerations if the new use is to be as a place of worship. Since idolatry is forbidden to Jews and non-Jews as well, we may not only not join in idolatrous practices, we may not even participate in providing a home for them. ......
To sell or lease a synagogue, then, does ask us to make some effort in advance of the sale to determine that the new occupant would not desecrate our values, religious and personal.
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Apparently NCYI did not make any efforts.
Hello. I see the last comment was made 8 years ago, and it's now 2020, but I just found this posting when I was researching Young Israel of Oxford Circle in Northeast Philadelphia, the Shul my father, Rabbi Julius Meles, A"H, officiated at for over 55 years. I want to make it very clear, that when the Shul was first sold once it closed, it was sold to a beauty salon, and at some point, the beauty salon closed and sold it to a Buddhist church. My father, A"H, would NEVER have allowed it to be sold to a church.
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