Chicago, IL – The eviction notice was addressed to “unknown occupant,” but that could not have been further from the truth in the small slice of Uptown where Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz ministered.
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Because of a dispute with Congregation Agudas Achim, where he had been rabbi for 13 years, Lefkowitz must leave the condominium the synagogue owns by mid-May.
“I’ll be sitting on a couch on the street,” said Lefkowitz, 64. “I have no place to go.”
Lefkowitz was fired last fall and the ensuing series of legal battles, religious as well as civil, has left the synagogue’s fate — as well as his — hanging in the balance.
The letter of dismissal said Lefkowitz was fired for “gross mishandling of synagogue funds and donations.” But his supporters, including dozens of neighbors who worshiped at the synagogue, signed a petition on his behalf. Many were immigrants from the former Soviet Union who had known little of their forbears’ faith before moving to Uptown.
“This amazing man taught us, step by step, what it means to be a Jew,” the petitioners, residents of several adjoining buildings, wrote in a scrawling Cyrillic hand.
After the rabbi challenged his dismissal in September, congregation president Steven Turk shuttered the synagogue. On the eve of the High Holidays, a notice was posted on a bulletin board in front of Agudas Achim: “We unfortunately will not be having Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur services this year.”
Agudas Achim was founded in 1884 on Chicago’s West Side by Hungarian immigrants. As their descendants prospered, the congregation moved north to Uptown, a ritzy, upper-class neighborhood in the 1920s. There Agudas Achim built a magnificent sanctuary with seating for 2,000. Two decades later, Jews began moving farther north, and the congregation’s fortunes spiraled downward. At low ebb, it could rarely muster a minyan, the quorum of 10 required for prayer services.
When Turk first saw the synagogue in 1986, the roof leaked and vandals had smashed the stained-glass windows. His visit was inspired by the chance discovery that his great-grandparents were among its founders.
“I found 9 men — the youngest was 65, the oldest 102 — waiting and hoping for a 10th man,” said Turk, of the remaining congregation. “They embraced me.”
Turk, an executive for a truck-parts company who undertook the synagogue’s survival as a personal mission, became its president. He hired Lefkowitz, who soon became the congregation’s public face and earned a reputation for helping people in need, gentiles as well as Jews.
“The rabbi’s concern for those poor old Russians and any other suffering son or daughter of Adam and Eve, impresses anyone who gets to know him,” said longtime friend Rev. Richard Simon, former pastor of nearby St. Thomas of Canterbury Roman Catholic Church.
But Turk and Lefkowitz both acknowledge a personality conflict.
“The rabbi has to be in control of everything,” Turk said. “He would find a way to chase competent people off the board.”
Even his friends, including Michael Azose, rabbi of the Sephardic Congregation in Evanston, say Lefkowitz is not one for subtlety.
“He rubbed machers in his synagogue the wrong way,” said Azose, using the Yiddish for “big shots.” “I told him, his altruism for wayward people would get him into trouble.”
Lefkowitz is proud of his reputation as a troublemaker. “A 19th Century ethicist said: ‘A rabbi without detractors is not a rabbi,’ ” he said, adding that he had to take charge because Turk didn’t give him much support.
Some congregants say Turk, who lives in the suburbs, rarely attended services. Lefkowitz, a man of indefatigable energies despite persistent health problems, seemed to be everywhere.
“He is larger than life,” said Simon, of Lefkowitz, who is tall and sports a full beard and the black garb of the ultra-Orthodox.
Simon and Lefkowitz worked together on neighborhood problems. The priest also attended services at Lefkowitz’s synagogue in order to improve his Hebrew, and witnessed the deep bond between Lefkowitz and the elderly Russian-Jews of the neighborhood.
“They called him rebbe,” said Simon, referring to the Yiddish word that carries connotations of deep emotional ties.
The conflict between Turk and the rabbi came to a head in the middle of last year, when Turk said the board discovered a bank account in the congregation’s name they didn’t know about.
Lefkowitz said the account was necessary to manage synagogue funds and that he never used the money for personal gain. He appealed his case to a beth din, or religious court, which ruled it “did not find truly demonstrable evidence to prove the allegations.”
The beth din awarded Lefkowitz $20,000 in severance and ordered the congregation to pay the monthly assessments on the condo. When that didn’t happen, the condo association went to civil court for an eviction order.
Meanwhile, because the rabbi did not receive his severance, the beth din in April held Agudas Achim in contempt of court.
Turk acknowledged the beth din’s censure, saying the board was in the process of paying off the condo’s debts.
He said Lefkowitz has been sent part of his severance, and the board is currently raising funds to pay the rest.
Turk said he hopes to reopen the synagogue this summer and is looking for a new rabbi. But some elderly Russian Jews who worshiped there say they don’t want just any rabbi.
“We are newcomers in this country; our English is not good,” said Boris Shuster, 74. “Who can help us get our synagogue and our rebbe back?”
He should do what they used to do back in de heim – sleep on the back bench of the shul and those kind enough in the community will invite him for meals.
Sad matzav.
Who are these “board” members? Shouldn’t the people who actually daven there be on the “board”? This rav has a stellar reputation for being a real leader in the community. The members, it most shuls, have the right to demand new board elections. Some shuls, where the power-hungry people run everything, set things up where the existing board decides who can be new board members.
Another shul being destroyed by senseless, power-hungry people.
Fine, fine man, Rabbi Lefkowitz is.
why cant he open an other shul on his own?
let’s put together noney here on vin to open a new shul for Rabbi lefkowitz
Sounds like a personal, political isue. Not really something for outsiders to speculate about.
if everyone loves him WHERE ARE THEY yo let him on the street…. smells to me
May HKBH bless the Rebbe with hatzlucha rabbah. I need a Rebbe like that in my Shul…
A shandah!
I have fond & Good memories of Rabbi Phillip Lefkowitz from yeshiva days in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. A disciple of Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson & chassid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I remember Rabbi Lefkowitz’s first position as a Rabbi in a shul in Canarsie. I remember reading a few years ago of the loss of his son, …tragic, during a simple surgery.
Is the good Rabbi still associated with a chain of funeral homes? I wish him the best a fine & sterling character / reputation
we need a good rav who is not afraid to stand up and speak the truth
we would get him a shul
if hes interested there is a shul on 175th and tenth that is being sold
Agudas Achim? Couln’t have a better name :-)))
#4 . The shul itself is one of the most beautiful structures I have ever seen, but it is falling appart (or atleast it was when I saw it a few years ago). The Rabbi was devoted to fixing all the problems that come along with a building that old. I heard that he was always nervous that the shul would be sold to goyim, and he devoted himself to stopping that. He worked very hard, but there is a tiny Jewish community around that area. The main shul seats over a thuosand people, but there just isn’t a major need for a shul that size in that part of town. It’s sad, but that’s what happens when Jews migrate to the suburbs.
I am a former board member. I served on the board until a few years ago. It was always the Rabbi and his family keeping the shul going. Without the Rabbi and his family the place would have closed years ago. I also saw the document of the Beis Din decision. They said that the Rabbi did outstanding job! The Rabbi did not conceal the shul’s money. There is no money to conceal. Paying the heating bill was not always possible! birds fly into shul through the broken windows.
#4 . The shul itself is one of the most beautiful structures I have ever seen, but it is falling appart (or atleast it was when I saw it a few years ago). The Rabbi was devoted to fixing all the problems that come along with a building that old. I heard that he was always nervous that the shul would be sold to goyim, and he devoted himself to stopping that. He worked very hard, but there is a tiny Jewish community around that area. The main shul seats over a thuosand people, but there just isn’t a major need for a shul that size in that part of town. It’s sad, but that’s what happens when Jews migrate to the suburbs.
As a member of Agudas Achim Congregation, I read with interest the May 6 article by the Chicago Tribune, “Struggle for synagogue sees faithful locked out”. Charges and countercharges in a dispute can leave an observor confused. Any accurate and complete description of the situation should include the following:
1) The decision to close the Synagogue and fire the Rabbi was made in a secret board meeting. Attendance was by invitation only. Not all board members were invited.
2) The Synagogue general membership had no knowledge of this clandestine meeting. Board meetings are supposed to be available to the general membership. The location of the secret meeting was disclosed to invitees only 12 hours prior, by email. This was the first board meeting that did not take place on Synagogue property.
3) The building was then chained and locked and the Torahs (religious scrolls) removed. Meeting participants also control the checkbook. No explaination for the closing of the Synagogue or the firing of the Rabbi was given to the membership.
4) For the last year (since the previous president resigned and Steve Turk appointed himself president), the only board meeting has been this secret one (unless there was another even more clandestine meeting). The Synagogue is required to hold regular board meetings.
5) Steve Turk and his supporters appointed an additional individual to the board by proclaimation, without holding a meeting. They also exclude legitimate board members from Synagogue business.
6) Several petitions, signed by over 100 individuals and addressed to Steve Turk and his group, made several demands including that a Congregational Meeting be held to elect a new board. (The last such meeting was over 18 months ago.) Such an election is supposed to occure yearly. This petition was ignored.
7) The petitions also demanded that Synagogue financial records be made available to one of the legitimate, but excluded, board members. The Synagogue is a non-profit corporation and probably required to maintain and provide such records. This demand was ignored.
8) The charges against the Rabbi are contrary to numerous individuals experience with and judgement of Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz. Supporting documentation was not made public. The only independent investigation (by the Beth Din religious court) “did not find truely demonstratable evidence to prove the allegations”. Additionally, the Synagogue by-laws state that decisions regarding employees must be made in congregational meetings, not board meetings.
9) Most of those who attended weekly religious services were elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union. They are not represented on the board. They don’t have the cultural knowledge or financial means to fight for their rights. Mr. Turk and his supporters almost never attend services. I attended weekly and saw Steve Turk only on the High Holidays (and at the Passover Sedar when Governor Blagoyevich attended due to his relationship with the Rabbi).
10) On behalf of the Synagogue, Steve Turk took a food donation worth nearly $10,000 from Moat Chittim. This food is intended for needy Jews. What happened to this food is unknown.
11) A neighbor of the Synagogue reports that a window is broken, lights are on at all hours of the day and night, and sounds are coming from inside the building. Since Steve Turk and his supporters locked everyone else out, they are responsible.
The above information provides additional insight into and clarification of the dispute.
What is really needed now is for a lawyer to represent the Rabbi and the Congregation pro bono. Those who have presumed authority over the Synagogue could not get away with this if they were forced to account for and justify themselves. The Rabbi and his supporters do not have the means to engage such a lawyer.
Agudas Achim Congregant
Rabbi Lefkowitz is a good rav and a mentsh. Let him get back to what he does best- being a Rav
Does anybody know if this is the shul of the former Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Hecht Z”L, a right hand man of the Lubavitcher Rebbe?
Does anyone know how to contact Rabbi Lefkowitz? This is a man who made a huge difference in my life and many of my peers from Brooklyn, NY many years ago. He is an amazing human being and spiritual leader and I would like to contact him.
Please let me know if anyone knows contact information for him.
Mark Blaustein
In response to #25 , I told the Bet Din prior to the Din torah that given Turk had closed the Synagogoue I would retire. The Av Bet Din at the Din Torah told Turk the Synagogue was closed and defunct. I sought money owed me and a buy out. The money would come from the ale of the Synagogoue. Subsequent to the Din torah Baale Batim have written letters and a formal petition demanding the annual meeting be hled and that the Synagogue be reopened with me serving as its Rabbi. I am more than willing to do so.
There was a Mikvah. It was beautiful and heated. That was unusual for Mckeesport, PA in the warly 1970’s. The Mikivah was the handiwork of the late Rav Chinn (OBM). Rav Chinn was a Tzadik. The beauty was slienced and so were the memories.