A Brooklyn hospital group is pushing to demolish a nearly 100-year-old synagogue as part of an affordable housing project — sparking calls from the local Jewish community for New Yorkers to help save the piece of history.
The Kingsbrook Shul in East Flatbush — which was built in 1927 in response to a rise in antisemitism — launched a bid to stop the house of worship from getting demolished to make way for the 266-unit mega-project.
The site is located on the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center campus, owned and operated by the nonprofit One Brooklyn Health — which is seeking to convert the campus into an affordable housing complex.
“The way they see it is there’s a sort of conflict, you know, a choice between affordable housing and the preservation of the shul,” attorney for the synagogue, Stuart Blader, told The Post Friday.
“That is false.”
The $400 million state-funded conversion project was announced in 2023. Initial renderings called for the synagogue to be torn down – but alternative renderings and written agreements from the state called for the historic building to remain untouched in the construction process, Blader said.
The synagogue shuttered in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, but a group of local Orthodox Jews who worshipped there have been hoping to return, and filed suit in Brooklyn Supreme Court last year in a bid to stop One Brooklyn Health from tearing it down.
An attorney for One Brooklyn Health argued in court Wednesday that it didn’t make sense for the house of worship to remain as a “zombie structure” once the campus is transformed into the housing complex, Gothamist reported.
“The law, the facts, the public policy and, I would argue, the sympathy are on the hospital’s side,” attorney Jason Hsi said, according to the outlet.
The standalone building adorned with stained glass windows was built by the Jewish community nearly a century ago.
It expanded to become a community center that served the surrounding area in the 1950s, and continued serving the Jewish people of Brooklyn for nearly 75 years until the pandemic.
“That continuation is now in question because of greedy developers that want to take this and of course, maximize the money when they build … that’s where they can get more square footage,” said a congregant of the shul, Zelman Goldstein.
Goldstein said families in the neighborhood are anxious for the center to reopen, telling The Post his son, Yossi is 12, and hopes to have his bar mitzvah there in October.
He hopes the larger East Flatbush community will support the synagogue’s fight against closure.
“I’ve seen people stand up and protest when a small little garden was going to be taken away, you know, here you’re talking about a community center that has been a center of life for the Jewish community here since 1927,” he said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul last year put out a statement in support of the synagogue, saying she wanted “leadership from the hospital and synagogue to find a path forward where both sites can prosper and serve the community.”
“It appears that the hospital is trying to leverage the synagogue and hold it hostage to secure more favorable funding arrangements with New York State,” charged community Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, who is not a member of the synagogue but has deep ties to the neighborhood.
“It’s just completely unconscionable that they should attempt to use government funding to displace and erase 100 years of Jewish history,” he said.
An attorney for One Brooklyn Health did not return requests for comment.