Bill to Amend Religious Corporation Law Withdrawn Under Orthodox Protest

A New York State Senate bill to amend the Religious Corporation Law to include Jewish congregations was withdrawn after protests from a variety of Orthodox and Hasidic groups, an official of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (UOR) told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Currently, Jewish congregations in New York States are governed under an article in the law referring to “other denominations.”

Rabbi Hirsch Ginsberg, UOR director, also said that a hearing in Albany scheduled for May I on the amendment, which had been scheduled by the Senate Committee on Corporation, Authorities and Commissions, had been cancelled. A spokesperson for the Senate committee confirmed the withdrawal and the cancellation of the hearing. The bill was introduced by Senators Linda Winikow of Spring Valley; Emanuel Gold of Forest Hills; Gary Ackerman of Flushing; Carol Berman of Lawrence, and Jeremy Weinstein of Forest Hills, all Democrats. Gold is deputy minority leader in the State Senate.

Ginsberg, told the JTA that the UOR convened a meeting of Orthodox rabbinical organizations and groups at the UOR office last Thursday, including the Rabbinical Alliance of America, the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, a Satmar group; and spokesmen for the Lubavitch, Vishnitz, Pupa, Bobover and other Hasidic groups.

Ginsberg said that two officials of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) also were present — Howard Zuckerman, president, and Dennis Rapps, executive director. He said the Rabbinical Council of America, one of the largest Orthodox rabbinical groups, was not invited because the lay agency with which it is associated; the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, participated in the drafting of the bill.

A resolution was adopted declaring that the proposed amendment contained material not in accordance with Jewish religious law. Ginsberg said Gold was told of the opposition of the 50 rabbinic and Hasidic spokesman at the meeting and asked to use his influence to have the measure dropped. Ginsberg said that Gold reached the other sponsors and called him Thursday to inform him the bill had been withdrawn and the May I hearing cancelled.

Gold told the JTA that he had told the participants at the meeting that the sponsors of the measure were only doing what they had reason to believe represented the desires of religious Jewry and had no intention to attempt to preempt religious doctrines. He added that he had assured the participants that no attempt would be made to “foist” such a measure on Jews opposed to it.

CHANGES EMBODIED IN BILL

The text of the proposed amendment, a covering letter and a memorandum describing the background of the amendment was distributed by State Sen. Donald M. Halperin, a member of the committee on corporations. The explanatory memorandum said the measure had been drafted by an “ad hoc committee of attorneys and rabbis representing a wide spectrum of the various Jewish denominations.”

The memo said the Orthodox representatives were from COLPA and the National Council of Young Israel, the Conservative Jews were represented by the legal affairs committee of the metropolitan region of the United Synagogue of America; and the Reform Jews by the metropolitan council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

According to the memorandum, “the foremost change of importance” embodied in the proposed amendment “relates to provisions for the adequate supervision of the disposition of real property and assets of religious corporations.” The memo declared that the amendment sought “to resolve the problem of distribution of corporate assets and real property which has long been left in a state of limbo and too often left to a handful of individuals who are irresponsible and not competent to make broad based decisions based on the substantial principles of law and justice and in accordance with the rules governing Jewish congregations” proposed in the amendment.

The proposed measure also sought to “prevent absentee members’ from disposing of a synagogue building without the knowledge of the worshippers, and to leave a changing neighborhood without a synagogue, which often results in a more rapid decline of the neighborhood.”