Congregation Prays for End of Opposition to Expansion
A Jewish community, with a desire to expand its facility, hopes than past and present opposition to such plans is not associated with religious discrimination.
Prayers at the Monday night Passover Seder, held at the Chabad Center of East Boca Raton, included asking G-d for favor with the city and the surrounding community, so that next year’s celebration will be bigger.
“We’re having a seder tonight,” said the Chabad spiritual leader Rabbi Ruvi New. “But I had to turn away people because we’re so small and we’re so limited.”
Rabbi New would prefer to be preparing the Passover Seder in a much larger facility.
For a long time, expansion plans for the Chabad Center have been drawn up, waiting to be implemented.
But four years ago, this Jewish community ran into opposition when it tried to build and expand on vacant property located off NE Mizner Blvd, just across Mizner Park.
Even with two other churches a few blocks away, Rabbi New says the city made zoning changes to the land that essentially killed the project.
“Last time around, when it was very ugly opposition.”
“Everything that the city requires, we can provide,” said Chabad Center member Irving Litwak.
He has donated new land where the Chabad wants to built a larger Jewish center at the corner of E. Palmetto Park Road and SE Olive Way.
The property sits just East of the Intracoastal, surrounded by businesses.
But just as they began to move forward on this expansion project, both Rabbi New and Irving received a letter signed by a “concerned citizen”.
The opposition letter to the expansion plans reads in part: “I am certain that if you attempt to build on that site, you will be tied up in years of litigation.”
“Call me or meet me face to face,” said Litwak, referring to the person who wrote the letter, “and tell me why we cannot build a Chabad on that property.”
And while Irving sees this as a freedom of religion issues, Rabbi New sees it as an opportunity to grow in faith with God.
“We have to be vigilant, we have to be cautious, but we shall not succumb to fear or intimidation.”
