Yonkers, NY - Midchester Jewish Center To Be Auctioned

Yonkers, NY - A closed synagogue that was to be sold to a Jewish school will instead be auctioned to the highest bidder.

The Midchester Jewish Center's congregation at 236 Grandview Blvd. merged with the Greenburgh Hebrew Center in Dobbs Ferry.
Bronx real estate developer Jacob Selechnik bought the building last year for $2.2 million, but was unable to sell it to his prospective client, a Brooklyn yeshiva, because the school could not raise the money to buy the property and that his recent efforts to sell the Jewish center were also unsuccessful, so he decided to try an auction, he said.

Moses Stein, a former Midchester congregant, opposed the center's closure and sued the Greenburgh Hebrew Center over Midchester's sale. The prospect that Midchester would be sold to a Jewish school gave Stein hope that he and others opposed to moving to Dobbs Ferry could still worship there. "It didn't seem objectionable because, as a Jewish institution, they would not operate on the Sabbath, and we could use it on the weekend," said Stein, who settled his lawsuit with the Greenburgh Hebrew Center. "I'm concerned about changing the whole tenor of the neighborhood. I don't know what's going to happen there."