Massachusetts Judge Upholds Synagogue Board Election

Last week, a Suffolk (MA) Superior Court judge decided a challenge to the election of board members and officers of Temple B'nai Moshe in Brighton, Massachusetts. Irwin Frankel, the Temple's president before the election, (along with another former board member) claimed that the April 29 synagogue election was invalid. However the court rejected his challenge to the propriety of the notice of the meeting that was given. Underlying the lawsuit was an attempt by a group of Orthodox Jews, supported by Frankel, to take control of the Temple that is currently affiliated with the Conservative movement. Frankel had not held a board election during his 7-year tenure as president. Yesterday's Jewish Advocate reports that Temple members, who finally forced an election to be held, saw the challenge to the election as an attempted "hostile takeover" of the synagogue by an Orthodox group who had been permitted to hold their separate services in the Temple's chapel. That group, Beis Binah, has now been asked to vacate the premises as the Temple looks forward to remaining a Conservative synagogue.