Shulamith court battle continues

Doubts about school’s intentions in Beit Din proceeding

By Mayer Fertig

Bnot Shulamith’s parent institution, Shulamith School for Girls, appears to be hesitating to submit to a rabbinical court’s authority to settle the ugly dispute with a parents’ group over the planned sale of the Brooklyn campus.

A letter dated July 14 from the director of the Beth Din of America, Rabbi Shlomo Weissman, to attorneys for both sides of the case, said that Edward Rubin, an attorney for Shulamith, had asked for a meeting to discuss “whether a New York not-for-profit organization may enter into a binding arbitration agreement that empowers an outside arbitrator” –– a Beit Din –– to settle a question of internal governance.

An attorney for the parents, Robert Tolchin, called the move “a sleight of hand.”

The school is “trying to get the beis din to decline to hear the case so that [executive director Rabbi Moshe Zwick] doesn’t have to take a public position as to whether he’ll agree to appear in front of the beis din,” Tolchin said.

However, Rabbi Zwick already has taken a public position. He told The Jewish Star in a May interview that, if summoned to a Beit Din, he would appear.

“The bottom line is I would go,” he was quoted as saying in the May 30 issue of the paper. “I’m a Jewish man. If they call me, I’m going.”

Shulamith has not yet formally responded to a hazmanah, or summons, from the Beth Din, which is an arm of the Rabbinical Council of America. In the July 14 letter, Rabbi Weissman said that the Beth Din has agreed to the requested meeting, which is scheduled for the end of July.

Several requests for clarification of the school’s position were e-mailed to attorneys for the school, and to a school official, last week and over the weekend, but went unanswered.

A group of 100 or so parents from the Brooklyn school has raised questions about the validity of the Shulamith board and is challenging its legal authority to enter into a sale of the Brooklyn campus without approval of the parent body.

The case turns on whether the parents are “members” of the institution and whether their voting rights empower them to seat a board of directors. The school contends that the board chairman and the president traditionally have chosen the board, and that the school’s original charter has been lost.

The group filed a Din Torah after first petitioning a New York State Supreme Court judge, unsuccessfully, to compel Shulamith to open its books for inspection and to provide a long list of other documents for inspection.

Another civil court date is also scheduled for the end of July, but the attorney for the parents insists he will put the civil court proceeding on hold if the school appears in a beit din in good faith.

“At every step of the way in court we’ve made it clear that if they would agree to come to beis din, we would go,” Tolchin said.

His clients had consulted four rabbonim, he added, and each ruled that when the goal of a legal proceeding is something other than money –– a temporary restraining order, for instance, or the production of documents –– then it is halachically permissible to “go straight to court, because the beis din has no power to issue a stay.” He declined to identify the rabbis who were consulted.

Shulamith intends to use the majority of the proceeds of the sale to purchase a new campus in Inwood for Bnot Shulamith. The Brooklyn parents are concerned that there will not be sufficient funds remaining to secure suitable space for the Brooklyn school after the campus is sold. School officials have underscored that they intend to continue operating the Brooklyn school indefinitely, but many of the parents involved in the case have expressed their doubt, given the lack of assurances that there will be sufficient funds.