Litchfield, CT - Commission Accused of Religious Discrimination Against Jewish People |
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News Source: NBC Connecticut
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Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach and his congregation want to turn a former business at 85 West Street into a synanogue just west of the town green in Litchfield. (Michael McAndrews, Hartford Courant / December 19, 2007)Litchfield, CT - The borough of Litchfield is under fire, accused of discriminating against Jewish residents.
In 2007, the quaint borough denied a conservative Jewish group’s application to build a synagogue in the west end of the green. Last month, a federal district court judge ruled that sufficient evidence of “discrimination against Jewish people” might exist, warranting a trial over, the Hartford Courant reports 
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Three years ago, Litchfield’s historic district commission denied the application Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County made to extensively renovate a historic house near the green, including building a synagogue, living space for Rabbi Joseph Eisenbach and his large family and a swimming pool for the Chabad group’s popular summer camp.
The commission rejected the plan for several reasons, in part that it would dwarf the existing historic home and others in the neighborhood, the Waterbury Republican-American reported.
But, the Courant reports, it was the anti-semitic undertone of the commission meetings that now form the core of the federal suit.
Chabad’s suit claims that, under the U.S. and Connecticut constitutions and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, Litchfield violated Chabad’s religious freedom and denied it the right to expand its building to the same size as Christian churches within the historic district.
“Several statements were made in what appear to be meetings of the [historic district commission] that may contain evidence of discrimination directed against Jewish people in general and the Chabad in particular,” the Courant reports, citing U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall’s ruling.
In their replies in federal court, the commission and its attorney argue that the commission simply was applying the same standards to the synagogue that any other project in the historic district would have to observe.
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Read Comments (4) — Post Yours »
1
Sep 07, 2010 at 11:20 AM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
This bubba meises that the Commission is floating that the Chabad's new home won't "fit into the existing standards, or match the decor of other structures in the area, is nonsense. In the community that I live in, when an Orthodox Shul attempted to erect a new building, there was opposition from goyim and some secular Jews, who claimed that the new building "would detract from the aesthetic appearance" of what they considered an historical structure located nearby. In the end, the Shul won out; however, at City Council meetings, there was an undertone of anti-semitism, with one person stating "why don't you Jews build elsewhere".
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Sep 07, 2010 at 01:00 PM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
This a WASP Neighborhood. It means white, anglosaxon protestant. Much of that state except the big cities like Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford.
In many many deeds it said you can not sell your house to blacks or Jews. It was the whole coast line from Stamford to Bridgeport. Old Greenwich and Greenwich were
port of this. Check the history.
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Sep 07, 2010 at 01:46 PM Anonymous Says:Report as Inappropriate
connecticut is overall so antisemetic. im in yeshiva there now
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Sep 07, 2010 at 02:46 PM Alan Says:Report as Inappropriate
Why is it not OK to build a mosque near ground zero (beside a matter of civility) but it is alright to fight any and all attempts against the building of synagogues? We Jews should be very careful no to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In the United States we have common ground with other faith communities not to impede religions even ones that we have little in common with. And a Florida church that wants to burn the Qur'ān sends a chill up my spine...it wasn't so long ago that they were burning Talmuds...will we open the door to this again. Remember what our Grandmothers said when hearing the news: "Is is good for the Jews?'.