Article Courtesy of The Palm Beach
Post
By Frank
Cerabino
Published
March 7, 2011
A Jewish civil war brewing in Century Village took a
road trip Wednesday afternoon to a Palm Beach County code enforcement
hearing room, turning what is normally a sleepy venue of mostly empty
seats into a mob scene of agitated retirees who tested both the limits of
the building's fire code and each other's patience.
For weeks, residents of the condominium complex near
West Palm Beach had been spreading the word to show up for the hearing on
whether resident Issac Feder was improperly using one of the two condos he
owns at Century Village.
Feder, 64, part of a
small but growing sect of Orthodox Jews in Century
Village, is a snowbird from Monroe, N.Y., who lives part
of the year in a unit in the Kinswood building. But he
owns another unit in the adjacent Golf's Edge building,
which he and the other members of his religious sect have
turned into a makeshift synagogue for the past two
seasons.
Men dressed in traditional black
garb and formal hats walk from other buildings in Century
Village to conduct twice-daily prayer services in Feder's
spare condo.
This has infuriated other condo
residents, who are mostly Jewish but not Orthodox and
don't want their building turned into an ultra-religious
house of worship. And they've complained to the county,
which initiated a code enforcement action against Feder.
"It's really not about
zoning," said Sam Koenig, 64, an Orthodox Jew who
lives in a different Century Village building and is
sympathetic with Feder. "This crowd doesn't want this
because it reminds them of an Eastern European shtetl, |
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Supporters
and detractors of Issac Feder (not pictured), a Century Village
resident who bought a second condo there and turned it into a
makeshift synagogue, await the start of a code enforcement hearing
Wednesday, March 2, 2011, in West Palm Beach. His neighbors
complained, saying men are going in and out of the apartment all day
to pray. County code enforcement says it's an improper use of the
property. Feder's lawyer says it's his Constitutional right to
practice religion. Another hearing was set for March 23.
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and makes them feel as if they're going back in
time."
It wasn't hard to find confirmation of that opinion.
"I see their women davening and dressing like
they're in Alaska," said Frances Merel, a Jewish resident in a nearby
building. "I don't want to see it. They feel like the rules aren't for
them. They're arrogant."
Her husband, Maynard, chimed in: "If they win,
I'm going to turn my apartment into a mosque."
Village's 'greatest threat'
Jewish residents at Century Village talk freely about
their condo community being overrun by the more zealous members of their own
religion, whom they view as clannish and disrespectful of social norms -
most notably, turning community pools into ritual cleansing baths.
"If they can get three or four people on the
board, they can get control of a building," said resident Elaine Brown.
"And then they can change the rules. This is the greatest threat to the
Village we've ever seen."
Aron Sandel, one of the seasonal Orthodox Jews who
lives in Century Village, says most of his critical Jewish neighbors are
overreacting to people who are simply practicing their religion.
"We don't have weapons. No guns. Everything is
quiet," Sandel said. "In order to pray, we need a minyan, and
that's 10 men. Sometimes we have a hard time making the minyan."
The group has shunned the Orthodox synagogue outside
the gates of Century Village. Last year, when the dispute began, Feder said
he was too frail to walk outside Century Village to pray, so he used his
spare condo as a gathering spot.
But he now says he sometimes lives in the spare condo,
a claim that may be significant in the legal argument of his lawyer, Esther
Zaretsky, but is scoffed at by his neighbors who showed up in droves on
Wednesday.
"There was a big propaganda about this,"
Feder's wife, Judith said. "They want to show we are wrong."
Postponement — and groans
Golf's Edge president Cookey Courier, a Jewish
snowbird from Michigan, helped spread the word about Wednesday's hearing
with fliers advising residents to meet at the clubhouse and use carpools to
get to the hearing.
The crowd overwhelmed the hearing room's capacity of
320 people. Villagers lined the walls, spread several deep on the wings and
spilled into the hallways of the county's Jog Road building.
The fireworks, though, never really developed, because
Feder's lawyer was able to postpone the matter to March 23, which brought
groans from the audience.
"This is what they do," Courier said.
"They postpone, postpone."
Carolyn Ansay, the special magistrate hearing the
case, said she was sympathetic to all those who had packed the hearing room
expecting a resolution.
"There's never been a code enforcement case that
garnered the attention of this one," she said.
Maybe next time the county could find a bigger room,
she told the crowd.
Marian Watnick, who was standing near the front,
shouted a suggestion to the magistrate:
"What about the convention center?"
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