BishopAccountability.org
	Prominent Rabbi Fights Suspension By Sulaiman Beg sbeg@lohud.com and Steve Lieberman The Journal News March 2, 2006 http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20060302/NEWS03/603020376/1019/NEWS03 NEW HEMPSTEAD — A New Hempstead synagogue's attempt to suspend its controversial rabbi is being challenged in one of the country's oldest rabbinical courts, according to documents obtained yesterday by The Journal News. Board members of Kehillat New Hempstead voted Sunday to suspend Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, the target of a civil lawsuit concerning allegations that he had sex with a woman who had sought marital advice. Tendler has denied charges of sexual harassment and having sex with the woman. Tendler, scion of a prominent Orthodox Jewish family and a founder of the synagogue, filed legal action Monday against the synagogue board with the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, which was established in 1901. The legal action claims the board lacks the legal authority to suspend him as rabbi. Tendler's lawsuit also alleges the board • conspired to interfere with existing rabbinical rulings and illegally interfered with Tendler's contractual relations with the synagogue. • acted with the intent to libel Tendler, providing newspaper reporters and other media with information as part of a conspiracy to destroy Tendler's career, embarrass his family and injure the synagogue's viability. • forced the synagogue into bankruptcy with the intent of voiding his contract. The legal action requires board members Shlomo Pomerantz, Bruce Minsky, Nathan Losman, Shelly Karben, Jerald Wolfset, Seymour Ratner, David Resnick, Hanan Waizman and David Graubard to appear before the rabbinical court by March 9. The lawsuit comes on the heels of a memo released to the media and various Internet Web blogs that the synagogue's board of directors had voted to suspend Tendler based on, among other things, the sexual harassment lawsuit, the synagogue's loss of membership and reputation, and board members' inability to determine the facts. Under the state's religious corporation law, trustees of a house of worship are not empowered to dismiss or remove its religious leader, according to Tendler's legal action and his supporters. According to the synagogue's 1990 bylaws, a petition asking for the discontinuation of a rabbi's service needed to be signed by more than 55 percent of the congregation. His rabbinical contract signed in May 1992 with the synagogue's trustees states, "The congregation agrees that the rabbi cannot be terminated unless permission is granted by an authorized rabbinical court." The contract states that Tendler would be paid $30,000 annually and receive a $20,000 expense allowance. Several members of the Kehillat New Hempstead board didn't return phone messages or e-mails for comments yesterday. Tendler did not return phone calls yesterday. He was not at the synagogue late yesterday morning and no one answered the door at his house, where he lives with his wife and some of their eight children. The controversy surrounding Tendler became public last year when the nation's most influential Orthodox Jewish council expelled him from it ranks because of the sexual charges. Tendler has been appealing that ruling to various religious courts in the United States and Israel. Tendler's lawyers also have asked a state Supreme Court judge to dismiss a December lawsuit accusing him of having sex with a 43-year-old Manhattan woman. She claims she went to Tendler for his assistance, but he abused his position and religious authority to have sex with her, causing her to suffer emotionally. The case is pending in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, said the woman's lawyer, Lenore Kramer. In the lawsuit, the woman claimed Tendler told her if she had sexual intercourse with him, "doors would open," she would "open up to meeting men" and "would get married and have children." She claims he told her he "was the Messiah." Tendler's lawyer, Glen Feinberg, said the rabbi denied the "scurrilous and outrageous allegations." Feinberg said the lawsuit should be dismissed based on state law. He said New York in 1935 repealed its law holding a married man responsible for seducing a single woman. "She is saying she is an adult and she engaged in sexual relations with another adult," Feinberg said, asserting that was not a legal basis for a lawsuit. The controversy has caused disruptions within the synagogue's congregation of about 100, and the community. Tendler's father, Rabbi David Moses Tendler, is the spiritual leader of Community Synagogue of Monsey and a renowned authority on religious law and medical ethics. Mordechai Tendler's grandfather was Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the country's leading Orthodox Jewish rabbis of his time. Two of Tendler's brothers, Dr. Yacov Tendler of Monsey and attorney Hillel Tendler of Baltimore, said the synagogue board lacked the legal authority to suspend their brother as rabbi. Yacov Tendler called the board members "malcontents and not an authorized board." "It's laughable," he said. "They are reaching out to smear his reputation on the Internet. The membership is laughing at this whole thing at the same time they are crying at it. The vast majority are his staunch supporters and are very loyal to him." The men said their brother had been to the synagogue yesterday and Monday and planned to continue going. "These people have acted illegally," Hillel Tendler said yesterday. "They may physically have control of the building and they can say whatever they want to say. They are not a duly constituted board and they acted illegally."
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