Who Owns Young Israel of Beverly Hills?

In May, on the eve of Shavuot, while most Orthodox Jews were preparing for the upcoming holiday, a few representatives from Young Israel of Beverly Hills (YIBH) were in a Santa Monica courtroom. They were finishing up the second day of a trial that, they hoped, would bring to a close a bitterly fought dispute that had been dogging their congregation for more than two years.

The case, as laid out in the complaint first filed by the National Council of Young Israel (NCIY) on Nov. 12, 2008, centered on actions taken by members of a family who had at one time been members of YIBH and had, over the course of three months in 2008, taken control of and significantly changed the direction of the synagogue.

This story, which started off as an intra-synagogue spat, has gone through numerous twists and turns. At one point, it threatened a decades-old institution with closure; it may yet force the family at its center to the brink of financial ruin. It is a cautionary tale of what can happen, even at a religious institution, when money is tight, real estate is valuable and the leaders of a community have stopped paying attention.

On Sept. 8, 2008, Lawrence (“Larry”) Mischel and Susan (“Sue”) Mischel reported to the California Secretary of State the results of an election held to choose the new officers of YIBH. Larry, a retired negative cutter with credits on films including “Pumping Iron” and “Sling Blade,” was elected chief executive officer. Sue, who owns a catering business, has worked in documentary film and secondary education and had officially been the shul’s recording secretary for more than three years, was elected secretary and chief financial officer.

Only two people other than Larry and Sue voted in the election — two of the couple’s adult sons, Samuel (“Sammy”) Mischel and Matthew Mischel.

Larry and Sue, who had started attending services at YIBH less than five years earlier, then officially changed the name of the 44-year-old nonprofit to the Jewish Resource Center (JRC). At the end of October, Larry signed a grant deed that transferred the building from YIBH to the newly named entity. Then, on Nov. 21, 2008, with the NCYI complaint and other legal actions involving YIBH and the Mischel family still awaiting resolution, Larry signed for a loan of $250,000 in the name of JRC. To secure the loan, he used JRC’s building at 8701 W. Pico Blvd. as collateral — the building that had, for the preceding four decades, been owned by and known as Young Israel of Beverly Hills.

The Mischels claim to have done all this for the good of the community. But at the time of this election, the people who thought that they were members and officers of YIBH had no idea what the Mischel family was doing.

A judgment on the dispute issued by the California Superior Court in early June decided the case firmly in YIBH’s favor. The court restored YIBH to its former status, handed the building back to the people representing the shul and held the Mischel family responsible for damage payments to the shul and repayment of the loan to the loan company. The Mischels have filed a motion to reconsider, along with a motion for a new trial, which will both be ruled on next week, on July 16. No matter which side ultimately prevails, the story has important implications about the way that synagogues – and, particularly, small synagogues — are run.

Aside from the new-looking vinyl sign that reads “Young Israel of Beverly Hills,” there’s little to suggest that there’s a synagogue behind the blank, rust-colored stucco walls of the building at 8701 W. Pico. But behind its gender-specific entrances is a space so typical of small Orthodox shuls in America that even the smell feels familiar. People who go to synagogues like this one often sit in the same seat for years. From the burgundy velvet drape covering the ark at the front of the room, to the well-thumbed volumes on the bookshelves at the back, to the tissue box mounted on the fixed mechitzah that divides men from women, every piece looks like it has been intensely and lovingly used for decades.

The first official record of the congregation that would become YIBH dates back to December 1963 — in its articles of incorporation, it was called Adath Yisroel — but the actual beginning came a few years earlier.

In 1961, the neighborhood known as Pico-Robertson was home to a few Chasidic synagogues, according to YIBH founding member Herbert Davidson, when “a couple dozen people” started holding Modern Orthodox services on Saturday mornings in one another’s homes.

After a few more changes in location, the congregation bought the building at 8701 W. Pico in 1968 with the help of the NCYI, which, according to Davidson, loaned the shul “a few thousand dollars.” By May 1967, Adath Israel had officially changed its name to Young Israel of Beverly Hills.

Esther Sinofsky grew up going to the shul. “When we moved here, this area was not exactly considered the main Jewish area,” Sinofsky said. “The big thing was when the Joseph brothers, who were members of the shul at one time, when they opened a falafel stand that was kosher. That was back in the late ’60s. That was a big thing.”

Today, the same stretch of Pico is lined with kosher restaurants, kosher supermarkets and small synagogues to suit every taste and tradition. But in the 1960s, the Orthodox options in walking distance — Beth Jacob and YIBH — were both mainstream and Ashkenazic. “All the other shuls that you see out there right now,” Sinofsky said, “at one time, we had a representative of almost everybody here [at YIBH]. We were a microcosm of everything that is currently around us.”

The roots of Young Israel go back to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where in 1912, Rabbi Israel Friedlander and Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (who would later found the Reconstructionist movement) launched an effort to attract young, English-speaking Jews to Orthodox synagogues, which were at the time dominated by Yiddish speakers. Nearly a century later, the 146 Young Israel synagogues operating under the umbrella of the New York-based NCYI claim more than 25,000 members across North America and are a formidable presence within the Modern Orthodox community.