The New York Board of Rabbis charged yesterday that Rabbi David Haymovitz, who resigned his $32,000 a year post in the New York City’s Human Resources Administration, was “literally hounded out of his position” and implied that the attack upon him “was an attack on the Jewish community.”
Rabbi Haymowitz came under attack by city union leaders when it was revealed that Mayor Abraham Beame was retaining him in his provisional job to which he was named last April while many civil servants were being fired because of the city’s budget crisis. Rabbi Haymovitz, one of three rabbis at the Brooklyn Jewish Center where Beame worships occasionally, was named by the Mayor to the HRA post to succeed Rabbi Bernard Weinberger, who had served in the position under the prior Lindsay administration.
AN ATTACK ON THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
Rabbi Sol Roth, president of the Board of Rabbis, issued a statement in which he declared, “The reason for his (Rabbi Haymovitz) resignation was constant harassment. He was literally bounded out of his position.” Rabbi Roth said the fact that Rabbi Haymovitz could command a good salary and has a good relationship with the Mayor was “totally irrelevant, morally as well as pragmatically.” He concluded, “One cannot help but wonder about the extent to which the attack on Rabbi Haymovitz was an attack on the Jewish community.”
In a letter of resignation to Beame, Rabbi Haymovitz said he was resigning with “extreme regret” because “the position that I hold has become the target of unpleasant and unjustified criticism which I find alien to my temperament and background.” Beame has asked the rabbi to serve as his unpaid “personal advisor” in the same areas that Rabbi Haymovitz handled in the Human Resources Administration, that of liaison to Jewish groups and the Jewish poor.
The New York Daily News, which first revealed that Rabbi Haymovitz was working for the city, said yesterday the rabbi was born in Israel and received undergraduate and law degrees from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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