By Rebecca Szlechter, JNS
Jonathan Sarna, of Brandeis University, told JNS that the partnership “vividly displays the benefits of the free marketplace of competing synagogues in the American setting.”
A new partnership between Park East Synagogue, a 136-year-old Modern Orthodox congregation in Manhattan and one of the highest-profile pulpits, and Chabad-Lubavitch of the Upper East Side suggests implications for both the two specific institutions and broadly for the Chassidic group’s place in the Orthodox world, experts told JNS.
“This reflects Chabad’s growing integration into mainstream denominational Judaism in America,” according to Adam Ferziger, a rabbi and a Jewish history professor at Bar-Ilan University, where he holds the university’s chair for research of the Torah and Derekh Erez Movement in its Jewish history and contemporary Jewry department.
Chabad has long been part of the core Jewish religious landscape in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa, but its primary focus in the United States has centered historically “on its own core followers, students and less affiliated or observant Jews, who resonated with its particular brand of Chassidic spirituality,” Ferziger, a Riverdale, N.Y., native, told JNS.
“Over the past few years, there has been an expansion to Modern Orthodox communities in the United States, but primarily in the Sunbelt area and other so-called out-of-town communities,” he said. “The achievement of this merger with a historic mainstream, Modern Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan is a testament to Chabad’s evolution and integration.”
Jonathan Sarna, professor emeritus of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, told JNS that the partnership “vividly displays the benefits of the free marketplace of competing synagogues in the American setting.”
Park East experienced a “significant decline,” according to Sarna, after Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt was fired as the synagogue’s assistant rabbi. The rabbi and his wife Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt formed a new congregation, Altneu, nearby on East 70th Street.
The new Park East-Chabad relationship is an effort to attract people, “especially young people,” back to the synagogue “by aligning that synagogue with a charismatic Chabad couple,” Sarna told JNS.
“While perhaps a challenge to the Goldschmidts, one suspects that the development will prove beneficial for the East Side Jewish community as a whole,” Sarna said.
“The Park East announcement demonstrates that Chabad has now become a normative part of the Jewish community,” the scholar told JNS. “Its rabbis may be found in every community, and many Jews who worship away from home, especially in little-served places, like China or Kathmandu, have encountered Chabad.”
“Seeing Chabad at the Park East Synagogue is unlikely to engender much push-back,” he said. “Chabad tends to be sensitive to local custom.”
Ferziger told JNS that the agreement also speaks to the needs of young singles and families in Manhattan who are seeking Jewish engagement that is “exciting and appealing.”
“It also demonstrates that the Park East Synagogue is in need of reinforcements to buttress its own vibrancy,” he said. “That said, Park East has a very successful elementary school that services a diverse Jewish community, and the parent body of that school will certainly be a target audience for many of Chabad’s activities.”
“This merger cannot be understood outside the other institutional developments in the area, namely the highly successful, neighboring synagogue, Altneushul, which was founded by the former associate rabbi of Park East and has drawn tremendous excitement among local young families as well as some veteran Park East members,” according to Ferziger.
“Competition is always a good thing, yet one hopes that it comes from a place of desire to expand portals of entry into Jewish life, and not, God forbid, inspired by any personal animus,” he said.
As a scholar, Ferziger told JNS that it was “interesting” that Goldschmidt’s father, a former rabbi in Moscow, had a “complex relationship with his Chabad parallels.”
He added, citing the Park East press release, that both Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the synagogue’s senior rabbi, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe were deeply involved in the movement to save Soviet Jewry between the 1960s and 1980s.
“Interestingly, however, what they both shared in common was their antagonism to public protest and their strong support for back-channel, behind-the-scenes, diplomatic and clandestine activity rather than open political protest and activism,” he said.
An Orthodox leader with extensive knowledge of Orthodox synagogues in New York told JNS that the partnership brings together two institutions with notably different approaches to Jewish communal life.
Park East has long had a prominent place in New York’s Jewish institutional landscape, while Chabad has built an extensive network focused on outreach, education and engagement with Jews across levels of religious observance, according to the leader.
That contrast may be particularly significant as established synagogues seek new ways to engage younger Jews and families, the leader told JNS.
Park East has been the site of some of the most anti-Israel protests since Zohran Mamdani was elected as New York City mayor.
Protesters gathered outside the congregation in May during an Israeli real-estate event, during which police prevented the antisemitic demonstrators from approaching the building. In November, the synagogue was also the site of a protest, and it in part fueled a broader discussion in the city and state about whether legislation was needed to protect houses of worship.
The New York City Council voted to pass two laws, one creating a buffer zone around houses of worship and the other around religious schools, which would prevent protesters from obstructing people entering and exiting the buildings. The houses of worship one passed with a veto-proof majority, but Mamdani nixed the schools one, which passed the council without that large a majority.
On May 31, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a state law that creates a 50-foot buffer zone around houses of worship and religious schools.
The rabbinic source told JNS that Chabad of the Upper East Side has grown significantly since Rabbi Ben Tzion Krasnianski and his wife, Chanie Krasnianski, established their first Chabad House in the neighborhood in 1991.
Chabad of the Upper East Side now has 10 branches in the neighborhood, per an official Chabad website.
The new arrangement between the Chabad and Park East, which is expected to begin on Rosh Hashanah and to expand programs for young professionals, families and adults seeking Jewish education at Park East’s building on East 67th Street, was announced on Friday.
Krasnianski will serve as an associate rabbi at Park East alongside Schneier, and Rabbi Yosef Wilhelm, director of Chabad Young Professionals Upper East Side, will be an assistant rabbi. Chabad Young Professionals, Friendship Circle, Chabad Young Families and the Upper East Side Kollel and Adult Education Center are expected to operate out of Park East.
Chabad’s preschool and mikvah will continue in the Schneerson Center for Jewish Life on East 77th Street, per the release.
The organizations said that the partnership will allow them to broaden their reach and provide more opportunities for Jewish education, prayer and community involvement on the Upper East Side.
An internationally known rabbi and Holocaust survivor, Schneier has led Park East since 1962.
