Court Hearing Due on Fight Between Jewish Anti-poverty Groups

The Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty has obtained a temporary restraining order against the Jewish Anti-Poverty Workers and its executive director, S. Elly Rosen, A hearing on whether the order should be made permanent will be held tomorrow before State Supreme Court Judge Sidney Fine, who issued it. The order also named Rosen as president of the Council for the Jewish Poor, described as the working arm of the Association, and Mordechai Rosen, the official’s brother.

The order bars the Rosens from “threatening and harassing” Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen, executive director of the Coordinating Council, and other officers and staff members of the agency, a coordinating body for Jewish anti-poverty organizations. The order also bars the Rosens from occupying any office of the Coordinating Council, from blocking entrance or exit to the office and from disrupting meetings of Coordinating Council officers and staff.

Elly Rosen said he had started an eight-day hunger strike five days ago in protest against a decision of the Coordinating Council to stop grants totalling $24,000 a year to the Association, The next grant would have been made July 1, The Rosen brothers and Morris Schwartz, a volunteer were arrested last Tuesday in the Coordinating Council office on charges of criminal trespass and harassment filed by Rabbi Cohen. The three were released on their own recognizance for an appearance May 22 in New York City Criminal Court.

Elly Rosen said he and his brother and the volunteer went to the Coordinating Council office to discuss the grant cutoff and that police were called immediately, though they were peaceful. A Council spokesman said that they banged on the window of the receptionist’s office and on the door.

HARASSMENTS, DISRUPTIONS CHARGED

The Coordinating Council issued a statement Friday declaring that its decision to cut off funding to the Association “was made only after a series of escalating harassments and disruptions that substantially impaired the conduct of its business and the functioning of the Council.”

The Association contended that the fund cutoff would force a drastic curtailment of programs for elderly Jews in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, where the Association maintains a storefront center called Hartzilu II. The Rosens said that volunteers deliver kosher food packages to 150 elderly Jews daily, except on Saturday.

The Rosens said that the Association received $30,000 in private funds which were used for the operation of the storefront center, which would be continued even if the Council fund out was implemented but that the Association’s office in Manhattan would have to be closed. The Coordinating Council, in its statement said that the fund cutoff would “in no way” affect funding “to serve the Jews of Brownsville. Several programs to care for these individuals are currently being conducted and plans are presently underway to create additional communal services for the Jews of Brownsville.”

ACTION TO SAVE JEWISH LIVES REFUSED

The Council declared that “the substance” of the Council board’s decision “was not to renew the personal salary and fringe benefits of S. Elly Rosen, a secretary and rental for a suite of offices” in Manhattan “upon termination of the Coordinating Council’s current Human Resources Administration contract on June 30.” HRA, the city’s super-agency for welfare and poverty programs, had previously been funding the Coordinating Council.

The Association cited the Coordinating Council’s statement that the funds were stopped because “we disrupted meetings and do not submit activity reports.” The Association said it did submit the required reports and added, “We admit to having committed” disturbances when the Coordinating Council “refused to take action to save Jewish lives.”