A New York appeals panel has denied a last-ditch attempt by three men tied to the gabboim of 770 Eastern Parkway to keep fighting a court ruling that stripped them of authority over parts of the world headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch. The Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, issued its decision on August 28, closing off another avenue in a legal battle that has dragged on for more than two decades between Crown Heights' central Chabad institutions and a local faction claiming rights to the synagogue.
Zalman Lipskier, Avrohom Holtzberg and Sholom Ber Kievman had each filed motions seeking leave to appeal a January 2024 ruling from the Appellate Term, according to COLlive. Lipskier and Holtzberg served as gabboim of 770, while Kievman was a former shamash there. The panel, made up of Justices Francesca E. Connolly, Linda Christopher, Helen Voutsinas and Laurence L. Love, denied the motion and gave no additional reasoning, per the outlet's report.
What the January 2024 Ruling Actually Decided
The Appellate Term's January 2024 decision dismissed possession claims against Congregation Lubavitch, Inc. concerning 770 and 784-788 Eastern Parkway on res judicata grounds, pointing to earlier ejectment litigation from 2007. At the same time, the appellate panel affirmed judgments awarding possession of the gabboim office space at 302-304 Kingston Avenue to Chabad's central institutions, according to a decision cited by FindLaw. The court also vacated judgments against two purported unincorporated associations on procedural grounds, and it explicitly stated that the question of whether gabboim could continue serving in their religious positions inside the shul was not before it, per the same account.
Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States owns 770 Eastern Parkway, while Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch owns both 302-304 Kingston Avenue and 784-788 Eastern Parkway, which together house the shared main shul. Those two central institutions sought to enforce their property ownership rights against the gabboim and Congregation Lubavitch, Inc., who maintained that the main shul belongs to the Crown Heights community rather than to the corporate boards. The New York City Civil Court had entered final judgments on January 6, 2022, ruling that Agudas Chasidei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch were entitled to judgments of possession, a ruling the gabboim and Congregation Lubavitch then appealed.
A Legal Trail Stretching Back Decades
Before seeking leave directly from the Appellate Division, Lipskier, Holtzberg and Kievman first asked the Appellate Term to reargue the appeals or grant permission to appeal, a request the Appellate Term denied in June 2024, according to CrownHeights.info. The three men ultimately failed to establish property rights greater than those of Agudas Chasidei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the outlet reports.
The dispute traces back further still. In December 2007, Justice Ira Harkavy ruled that Congregation Lubavitch, Inc. possessed no legal right to control the main synagogue and granted Chabad's central corporate entities the right to eject the group from 770 and 784-788 Eastern Parkway, a judgment described by Religion Wiki. That ejectment ruling later became the basis for the res judicata bar that doomed Congregation Lubavitch's newer possession claims in 2024. A 2020 decision by New York City Civil Court Judge Harriet L. Thompson, running more than 100 pages, further determined that Agudas Chasidei Chabad and Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch hold exclusive legal authority over 770 and adjacent properties, finding that the Lubavitcher Rebbe's intent was to vest power in corporate boards rather than individual congregants or gabboim, according to Anash.org.
Federal courts weighed in on Chabad property governance even earlier. In January 1987, U.S. District Judge Charles P. Sifton ruled in Agudas Chasidei Chabad v. Gourary that central movement assets belong to the religious community as a collective trust under corporate stewardship rather than individual heirs, a precedent noted by Chabad.org. The rift at the heart of these cases widened after the June 1994 death of the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, which pitted central Chabad institutional leadership against an elected local Meshichist faction of gabboim, according to The Guardian. Chabad originally purchased 770 Eastern Parkway in August 1940 as a residence and headquarters for the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, after his escape from Nazi-occupied Poland, per CrownHeights.info.
A Building Still Under Strain
The legal fight has unfolded alongside real friction at the property itself. In January 2024, NYPD officers arrested 12 people at 770 Eastern Parkway after a group of yeshiva students tried to stop construction crews from filling an illegally excavated underground tunnel connecting the synagogue basement to neighboring buildings, as reported by the Associated Press. That standoff illustrated how unresolved the question of day-to-day control has remained even as courts have repeatedly sided with the central corporate boards. Hoodline has also previously reported on a security scare inside the building, when a knife-wielding intruder was subdued by worshippers, and on federal charges filed after a vehicle rammed into the Chabad World Headquarters.
Under New York Religious Corporations Law Section 12, incorporated religious entities must follow strict statutory corporate governance and obtain court or Attorney General approval for major real property actions, a framework that reinforces the legal primacy of corporate boards over informal congregational groups, according to James G. Dibbini & Associates, P.C. That statutory backdrop helps explain why the gabboim's claims, however deeply felt within the community, have repeatedly fallen short in secular courts across more than two decades of litigation. Crown Heights remains the global center of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, home to roughly 20,000 Hasidic residents and more than 75 synagogues within a broader community of 130,000 people, according to Chabadpedia, meaning the outcome of this case carries weight well beyond the walls of 770 itself.
