East Boca Chabad Moves Forward Without Museum

from the Florida Sun-Sentinel:

According to Rabbi Ruvi New — spiritual leader of the Chabad of East Boca Raton, Florida — sometimes things don’t work out exactly how you planned — and you just have to adjust and move on.

Such was the case for New on Tuesday, Nov. 15 when the Fourth District Court of Appeals in West Palm Beach issued a two-sentence order denying the Chabad’s Oct. 14 Request for Oral Argument in a lawsuit concerning the City of Boca Raton’s approval of the Chabad’s site plan for its proposed synagogue/museum project in east Boca Raton.

The appellate court was responding to the Chabad’s appeal of a June 6 decision of the 15th Judicial Court of Florida in West Palm Beach disallowing the approval of the Chabad’s site plan by the City of Boca Raton for its proposed MyIsrael Center at the Chabad’s 770 E. Palmetto Park Road location.

The June 6 ruling was regarding a lawsuit brought by David Roberts, owner/broker of Royal Palm Properties — located at 741 E. Palmetto Park Road, just across the street from the proposed Chabad project.

Following the ruling, Roberts’ attorney — John R. Eubanks, Jr. — issued the following comment, according to the Boca Watch news blog: “The Fourth District Court of Appeals just denied the Chabad’s petition. Based on the fact that all five judges approved the decision and that there is no written opinion, it would be very hard to appeal this order to the Florida Supreme Court.

“Instead, the Chabad will need to start all over again with a new application.”

Thus, after two years of contentious public hearings and court cases, New has been forced to accept that his dream of having a MyIsrael Center museum celebrating the state of Israel as part of his Chabad synagogue will not come to pass.

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