Protest heats up at synagogue
Temple expected to vote on yeshiva proposal this week
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

DENNIS SYMONS JR. Sharlene Ellentuck, (l) John and Carol Impellizzeri, Heather Mateyka, Harry Parker and Tom Curry protest at the Roosevelt synagogue on July 28.

A peaceful protest at Roosevelt’s synagogue turned somewhat violent on July 21.

Jay Goldman, a resident of Roosevelt for 18 years, said a member of Congregation Anshei Roosevelt’s board of trustees physically removed him from the synagogue, located on Homestead Lane, during the synagogue’s annual membership meeting.

“A bully — a congregation member — lifted me up, physically assaulting me, and threw me out of the building,” Goldman said. “I landed on my feet, but this person, who I will not name, as I may press charges, lifted me up, carried me and put me down.”

PHOTOSBY DENNIS SYMONS JR. Above, Roosevelt resident Jay Goldman, trying to gain entry into the Roosevelt synagogue with a proxy, has words with armed security guards on July 28. At right, Heather Matekya, a Roosevelt resident, holds a candle during a protest vigil in front of the synagogue July 28.

Goldman exchanged words with four armed security guards who were hired by the congregation, as he tried to gain access into the temple with a proxy from his stepfather, Norbert Singer, of Lawrenceville. Goldman was initially denied access, but was eventually escorted into the meeting by the state police.

Although the synagogue board did not vote on the yeshiva proposal during the meeting, the board did reconfigure its trustees. Mayor Neil Marko, who was serving as a board member, and Elly Shapiro, the synagogue’s president, both stepped down from their posts. Shapiro’s husband, Arthur, and Nonna Sherek took positions on the board.

The board of trustees will most likely meet to discuss the yeshiva issue in a closed meeting sometime this week.

With regard to the scuffle that ensued when he tried to get into the meeting, Goldman said, “I was frustrated and emotional, mainly because I was thinking about my mother, who is buried on the hill in the Roosevelt cemetery as a member of the Roosevelt synagogue,” Goldman said.

Goldman, who is Jewish, said his entire family once belonged to the synagogue.

“We were members for a couple of years,” Goldman said. “My daughters attended Hebrew school there.”

While his daughters were learning Hebrew at the synagogue, Goldman said the subject of the Holocaust came up.

“My daughters came home one day and started saying that the Holocaust was the result of Jews not being true to the exact wording of the Bible,” Goldman said. “That is an ultra-Orthodox [belief], an extreme belief.”

Goldman said he had trouble with what his children were learning so his immediate family decided to leave the congregation.

“Unfortunately, at that time,” Goldman said, “the synagogue had a religious leader who was very aggressive. “He alienated a lot of people.”

Approximately two years ago, Congregation Anshei Roosevelt ceased to have a rabbi altogether.

According to Elly Shapiro, members left the congregation for “a variety of reasons.”

In a letter addressed to members of the congregation dated May 2, Shapiro wrote, “Death has taken its toll, the mechitza [meaning “divider,” it is the separation via a wall or curtain of men from women during religious services to avoid distractions during prayer] has caused others to leave, and others still have left due to a lack of family-targeted community activities.”

The letter informed members that the synagogue’s financial resources would run out in the near future and that the congregation needed more than money.

Shapiro called on members of the congregation to assist board members in “making decisions that will affect the makeup of Congregation Anshei [Roosevelt] forever.”

In the letter, Shapiro said, “We have been approached by members of the Telshe Yeshiva, who want to bring students to our town and use the shul [synagogue] as a school, as well as build a dormitory on property they are negotiating to buy.”

As a member of Congregation Anshei Roosevelt, Norbert Singer, of Lawrenceville, received Shapiro’s letter. Singer is Goldman’s stepfather.

“About a year and a half ago, my mother became terminally ill with cancer and, as a family, we decided that she should be buried in the Roosevelt cemetery,” Goldman said. “She and my stepfather began paying dues to the synagogue to secure her a place in the cemetery, where she is now buried.”

After hearing that the synagogue’s board was thinking of implementing an Orthodox Jewish school for boys at the synagogue, Goldman and others tried to gain membership in the synagogue in what is now referred to by residents as plan B.

According to Goldman, about two weeks prior to the annual synagogue membership meeting, Goldman and approximately 11 other residents sent membership dues to the congregation, hoping to be able to participate in congregational meetings in an effort to help revitalize the temple.

“We sent our checks, but they were never cashed,” Goldman said. “Before the meeting started, we were told we were not on the list and that our checks had not been cashed because we forgot to put our P.O. box numbers on them.

“I can see one or two people forgetting to do that,” Goldman said, “but I can’t believe that all of us forgot.”

Goldman and others who participated in plan B, as well as other residents, protested outside the synagogue during the membership meeting.

Resident Valerie Skillman called it “the blackest day Roosevelt has ever seen.”

“A group that claims to want to revive the synagogue and do mitzvahs or good deeds for the town shows up with guns for a meeting,” Skillman said. “Why should we welcome them into our community?”

Skillman said she was not intimidated by the security guards, guns or cameras.

“They have to hide behind guns and guards to even gain access to our peaceful town?” Skillman said. “I still stand by my choice to live in and raise my children in this town.”

Congregation Anshei Roosevelt’s board of trustees plans to lease the synagogue building on Homestead Lane to Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah, an unofficial branch of Telshe Yeshiva, which was founded by alumni of a yeshiva headquartered in Riverdale, N.Y. The yeshiva plans to begin school in September with an estimated 10-15 freshman boys studying at the Roosevelt synagogue, according to Elly Shapiro.

Shapiro has said the school would ultimately grow into a four-year institution for a student population of 40-60 boys.

Although Shapiro said the synagogue has tried to revive itself in numerous ways, she told the local Jewish newspaper, “The only people willing to help us are the Orthodox.”

Residents began circulating a petition against the yeshiva proposal on June 22.

“The concern in town is that the organization’s faculty will bring their houses off the tax rolls once they start to make use of the shul in the synagogue this coming September,” resident Damon Duchai said. “The residents have not been given any assurances that the aforementioned houses will stay on the tax rolls.”

Duchai said residents began worrying about houses coming off the tax rolls when, at a recent Borough Council meeting, the mayor spoke about such a possibility.

“The mayor said he spoke with the synagogue lawyer and they looked into the process of removing the houses from the tax rolls,” Duchai said. “It’s a safe assumption that if the yeshiva’s faculty weren’t looking into removing the houses from tax rolls, the mayor wouldn’t have looked into and [wouldn’t] know the process it takes.”

Borough Administrator Robert Clark has gone on the record stating that people connected with the yeshiva would make payments in lieu of taxes if it was determined that they were entitled to a tax exemption. He did not speculate as to what those payments would entail.

Two houses on Lake Drive have already been purchased to house people associated with the yeshiva. Josh Pruzansky, executive vice president of Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah and Rabbi Yisroel Eisenberg are expected to live in the houses, which will also serve as boarding for yeshiva students during the Sabbath.

Pruzansky and Eisenberg first visited Roosevelt in March, and soon afterward the houses were purchased. It remains unclear if the rabbis and their families or the yeshiva purchased the homes.

Duchai said residents are also concerned that the yeshiva would impact the borough’s limited services and the fate of the Roosevelt Public School (RPS).

“The startup of a private school at the synagogue — and faculty purchasing houses in town [but] ... not sending their children to RPS — would mean less of a chance for families with children to purchase those homes and raise the current enrollment,” Duchai said.

Although members of the synagogue board want to maintain the congregation’s Orthodox charter, residents like Goldman believe there are other ways to help the synagogue.

Goldman said Congregation Anshei Roosevelt could have accepted the proposal from Fund for Roosevelt, a nonprofit organization in town.

“Shortly after the community heard that the synagogue needed help, the Fund For Roosevelt proposed buying the synagogue and preserving it,” Goldman said. “The congregation could have held services there if it wanted to, or the town could have used the building as a community center.”

Goldman said the congregation turned away that proposal and about 25 families, including his, that wanted to join Congregation Anshei Roosevelt but could not because “we are too liberal in our Judaism.”

Resident Jeff Ellentuck said he has heard the synagogue board cast aspersions at his religious affiliation.

“They [board members] have said in private and in the newspapers that my branch of their religion is too liberal,” Ellentuck said. “To their horror, we allow women as full participants. We allow non-Jewish members to attend services with their Jewish children. We have singing.”

Ellentuck said he received his bar mitzvah and religious education at the Roosevelt synagogue.

“The synagogue was previously open to all,” Ellentuck said. “Over the years, the synagogue board changed.’

After returning to Roosevelt after living elsewhere for a number of years, Ellentuck said his family was no longer welcome at the Roosevelt synagogue.

“We were not Jewish enough,” Ellentuck said.

Regarding the current issues surrounding the Roosevelt synagogue, Ellentuck said, “The religious issue is a conflict between liberal and Orthodox. The secular issue is that the yeshiva plan proposes a violation to our zoning laws and is not keeping with our historic designation.”

The yeshiva proposal has caused a rift in the community, and in some cases has pitted neighbor against neighbor and Jew against Jew. Whereas Marko and Shapiro have gone on the record calling protesters anti-Semitic, protesters outside the synagogue that night held a candlelight vigil along with signs that read “I am Jewish, and I’m not a bigot.”

“The protesters were quiet, and respectful,” Skillman said. “There was no yelling, no screaming, nothing directed toward the synagogue in disrespect at all.”

The crowd of protesters consisted of both children and adults. At any given time throughout the day and night, approximately 50 residents could be seen protesting. Goldman said that approximately 50 congregation members were inside the synagogue attending the meeting.

“Our town has always equally welcomed persons of all races, religions and sexual preferences,” said Arthur Shapiro, who is also the town historian. “It’s Orwellian that some of those same citizens now believe some should be more welcome than others.”

Shapiro said the synagogue won’t cause a financial burden on the town or be the death knell of the school.

“The potential financial impact of having these homes [residences associated with the yeshiva] declared as houses of worship being removed from the tax rolls has been answered,” Shapiro said. “Any contract with the yeshiva will include a provision not allowing this to happen.”

Shapiro said it’s not the yeshiva but the state that is putting pressure on small school districts to merge to be more financially efficient. He also said it’s not the borough’s business to control who moves into town to guarantee a school population.”

Goldman said the congregation should let the public know what kind of lease it’s considering with the yeshiva.

“Is it a one-year lease with an option for renewal or is it a 25-year lease?” Goldman said.

Although the former president of the synagogue has said that the yeshiva school will open in September, Goldman said, “I hope there is still an opportunity to turn this plan around, or we will see Roosevelt change dramatically in the next 10-15 years.”