PPG ≠ Power Play Goal (Sorry Zach)Shluffenheimer MacDougal would like to wish
a hearty Scottish Mazal Tov to
Etz Chaim for getting their approval
from BOA on Wednesday August 11, 2010.
I'm sure there will NOT be a kiddush this week or a special L'chaim to celebrate.
There will be no ticker tape parades down Cedar Lane or Queen Anne Rd. for that matter.
CareOne will not be putting postings on TeaneckShuls to help you with a minyan and NNJ Kids will not make a monthly donation to your PPG.
Based on initial reports from the BOA meeting, Etz Chaim members are POed. They got their approval but there are A LOT of restrictions that they will have to obey.
Personally, I don't understand why they are upset.
From Day 1 President Robert Erlich has claimed that Etz Chaim is a Private Prayer Group and runs within the constraints of a PPG. In a response to an article in The Jerusalem Post Robert Erlich wrote:
A reply from Teaneck
Sir, - Marilyn Henry's article about the Teaneck, New Jersey, Etz Chaim variance hearing egregiously misrepresents and mischaracterizes many of the elements of our situation, and in doing so unfairly terms my testimony either "clever or deceptive" ("A house, or a house of prayer?," December 27). In truth, the article is deceptive in taking the ancillary statement of a technical legal distinction and wrongly portraying it as the relevant question at hand. The distinctions between a private prayer group and a house of worship, in our case, are numerous and not at all accurately depicted in this column. Our group meets at the rabbi's house only on days when driving is forbidden, meeting at all other times and for all other functions at other locations; no other synagogue-type functions take place at the house, which is not the mailing address or corporate office of the organization; the house is a full-time, round-the-clock private residence of a family of five, maintaining a residential look, with no permanent fixtures of a house of worship; among several other distinctions.
The Rabbi of this PPG, Rabbi Feldman, claimed in The Jewish Standard that:
The rabbi disputed the change-of-use argument saying that of the 168 hours in a week, only five are devoted to religious services at the house, which are held Friday night and Saturday morning and afternoon. “That’s 3 percent of the time,” he said. “It is our understanding, confirmed in two meetings with the township, that [a] prayer group in the house is a permitted residential use. Thus, we do not believe that the use has been changed in any way.”
Coincidentally, again based on early reports, most of the stipulations that the BOA have attached to Etz Chaim's approval are consistent with Robert Erlich and Rabbi Feldman's descriptions of what Etz Chaim of Teaneck really is.
It is a PPG - Private Prayer Group!
So, Mazal Tov to Etz Chaim of Teaneck on getting township approval to be all the Township will limit them to be, a PPG.
I'm sure there were easier ways to get Rabbi Feldman a house.
1 comment:
Your assessment seems to be spot on Mac. These guys got exactly what they wanted all along. Or did they? I can't imagine that Rabbi Danny Feldman or his lay leadership ( Erblich, Levine, Cohen, Guralnik, Frome etc) would settle for a PPG format for very long. How long will it take for them to start chomping at the bit to expand into 576 QA?
Post a Comment