The following is a WCBSTV report:
Some neighbors in Cambria Heights, Queens are fighting a synagogue’s plan to expand a building in a cemetery, where already hundreds of worshipers pray each day.
It attracts Orthodox Jews from New York and the world over. They want to visit the resting place of this religious leader Menachem Schneerson, Grand Rebbe of Lubavitcher Hasidim, who died in 1994. He’s buried next to his predecessor and father and law.
“He was like an angel of God, loved all people, all humanity,” Rabbi Martin Liebowitz told CBS 2’s John Slattery on Friday.
But how much love can a neighborhood stand? The place: the Old Montifiore Cemetery on Francis Lewis Boulevard, where crowds come, especially on the high holy days. A community center has been constructed near the graves, behind five single-family homes owned by the Lubavitchers.
But now, the congregation wants to join all five homes into one large structure that would essentially be a dormitory.
“Why do you need sleeping quarters?” neighbor Dorothy Miller wondered.
Miller, who has lived in the area 30 years, said the plan for 52 beds would bring more traffic, less parking, and more trash to her neighborhood.
“They’re very disruptive when they come to the neighborhood. They have no respect for us. We’re just opposed to their wanting to expand,” Miller said.
Another neighbor posed the question: would you want a motel a few doors from your house?
A spokesman for the movement said there are no hard plans drawn up, and couldn’t speak to it.
“As I said, I can’t comment on the proposal because it’s pending,” said Rabbi Abba Rebson of Ohel Chabad Lubavitch.
The people who live in the modest homes and always had the solitude of a cemetery nearby, now find their homes in the path of a pilgrimage that keeps growing and growing.
The issue must go before the zoning board and would require a variance for approval in the predominantly residential area.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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19 Responses
I’m afraid the neighbours are right here. It’s not like their going to Uman where they have to stay overnight due to flights, this is in New York, there should be no reason whatsoever for people having to sleep there.
The neighbors may be right but they’re gonna lose & chabad is going to get what they want.
There are usually 40 bochurim (often times more!) there every shabbos. On the days approaching a chasidishe yom tov, there are hundreds that choose to stay overnight. The arrangements they have now are terrible. This really is a necessity.
#1, Have you ever heard of Shabbos and Yomtov?
The neighbours think that the building will cause people to come, but they have it backwards. Whoever intends to go to the Ohel is going to go whether there’s a building there or not. The proposal is to make things easier for them, but they’re going now without it, and if the proposal is rejected they’ll continue to go. The neighbours can’t do anything about that. So why object to the building proposal?
Well Thank Goodness Moshe Rabbeinu does not have to worry about being deityfied as haShem foresaw in His Infinite Wisdom, that such occurrences could transpire, and hence chose not to reveal unto us, the Burial place of Moshe Rabbeinu.
Have these ingrates any idea what Chabad & the Ohel has done for house prices there? These tiny shacks on FLB are going for hundreds of thousands. They should be delighted that we want to buy up their squalid little homes.
I was just there tonight: the street is clean & quiet. It is treated with respect by visitors, even the non-Frum & non-Jews who flock there. People are very careful NOT to park in driveways. In the past, at busy times, I have had to park a considerable distance from the entrance & I have trouble walking. But I would never block someone’s driveway, just as I wouldn’t do it in Boro Park.
#1 People go to the Ohel for Shabbos, Yom Tov & other occasions. You can’t comprehend it? Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. Personally, I don’t get the Umnan thing (why can’t they fly in & out?) but then again, that’s not my Shi’ita.
Yes and no. The fact is that people will and have come anyway. This is not looking to attract more but just attempting to cater to the people that come regardless.
This is exactly the type of arrogance that contributes to anti-semitism. There is absolutly zero reason the lubavitch need a dormitory near the rebbe’s kever. There are literally thousands of hotel/motel rooms within a short drive from the cemetary. They can come before shabbos or yom tov or after shabbos. If they are so machmir about driving, they can walk on shabbos. People have a reasonable expectation when they buy a home in quiet residential neighborhood, someone is not going to build a dormitory or schachthois or other nuisance or visyal eyesore in their back yard next door. Hopefully, the lubavitch will rethink this terrible idea.
I thought that one of the goals of Lubavitch is respecting others needs, whether they make sense to you or not.
What would the Rebbe have wanted?
#6, you are an am ho’oretz. In which children’s book did you read that that was the reason why Moshe’s grave is unknown?
#9, “If they are so machmir about driving”. I knew this troll is not a maamin. Driving on shabbos is not a chumra!
Go Milhouse! Trolls on a fum blog? Whouldathunk?? Tsk Tsk
The Lubavitchers are WORSHIPING him. This is real Avoda Zorah. We should all be aware of this and stop looking the other way and pretending it isin’t what it really is.
Dear Reb Milhouse,
The comparison to Yaakov’s concern about being made into an Avodah Zara is made by the Yalkut Reuvaini, the Chezkuni, and the Chsam Sofer to name a few. The Abarbanel entertains it but dismisses it. The Rashash writes in his siddur the three tikunnim necessary to do tesguva for hamechaneh shaim rah lechaveiro
1] fast for 30 days til night
2] ask mechila
3] malkus betzinah
#6 – Excellent point.
To Number 15.
You missed the point which Millhouse was saying. Moshe Rabeinu’s kever is not known and that is what Millhouse is referring to. Yakov Avinu’s kever is known where it is.
Dear Mr old fashioned Jew of number 14.
There are just too many things to refute your comment. Just for a start the gmara quotes the possuk that says
that it is a mitzva (according to some rishonim it is one of the 613 mitzvas), to cleave to Hashem.
How can one cleave to Hashem?
The gmara answers that by cleaving to a talmid chocham one is as if he has cleaved to Hashem.
#15, This is not pshat in the posuk, it is not a mainstream interpretation, it’s an obscure pshetel, and nobody is mechuyav to accept it. To cite it as if it were the normative pshat is a sign of either ignorance or dishonesty. I’m charitable enough to attribute it to the former.