Will TriBeCa Permit a Sukkah?

By COLlive reporter

Joseph Berger, a reporter for the New York Times, filed a story about a public Sukkah that Chabad of TriBeCa wants to put up to service the Jewish residents of neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.

But the project will need more than four walls and schach branches.

When Rabbi Zalman Paris asked for a permit to put up the sukkah, 3 members of the community board’s 11-member TriBeCa committee either voted against it or abstained, leaving the permit in limbo.

Opposition for the Sukkah to be placed in Duane Park, “a triangular traffic island,” say it violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against establishment of religion or, at the very least, is an intrusion in a tiny park.

Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer has urged the board to support the sukkah, the Times reported.

And Julie Menin, the board’s chairwoman, would not say how she would vote but said, ‘our community has been known as a very tolerant community.”

What is interesting is that the same board “played a role in the controversy over the creation of an Islamic center near ground zero when it approved a request to drop the landmark status of the building envisioned for the center.”

The next vote is scheduled on the permit on Tuesday.

Rabbi Paris took pains to tell the Times he was mindful of the neighborhood’s sensitivities.

Read full article