Fla. cantor's legal fight clouds Jewish new year - MiamiHerald.com
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A bitter contract dispute between a Florida synagogue and its former cantor is overshadowing the holiest days on the Jewish calendar.
Temple Beth Am of Jupiter was locked in mediation Tuesday with Bruce Benson, who had been the synagogue's cantor for four years but left to start his own organization, the Institute for Jewish Living. The temple has sought to shut down the institute's services for Rosh Hashana, which begins Thursday, saying Benson is violating a non-compete clause in his contract and could fundamentally destroy the synagogue.
"This has and will continue to have a damaging and destructive effect upon (the) temple's business to the point of threatening its very existence," the lawsuit charges. The temple claims it "will suffer irreparable harm and may be completely destroyed."
A judge declined to dismiss the lawsuit over the matter in a Monday hearing, but also refused to order Benson to call off his high holy day services, instead demanding the two sides work to resolve the dispute. If a resolution is not reached before Wednesday, an emergency hearing could be held ahead of Rosh Hashana.
Benson became the cantor at Temple Beth Am in 2007 and remained there until June 30, when he left to begin work at his institute, which he says provides a Jewish education outside the formality of a synagogue. "I had experienced quite enough of synagogue life," Benson said in an Aug. 4 letter to Temple Beth Am president Bruce Cohen, which is included in the lawsuit.
Benson's contract states that, for 18 months after he ended employment, he won't "perform cantorial or musical services, in any manner whatsoever, for any synagogue located in Palm Beach County or Martin County, Florida" and won't "solicit or endeavor to entice away" current or prospective members of the temple.
Temple Beth Am claims he's doing both.
Benson insists his institute is not a synagogue and that he hasn't directly solicited congregants.
Brian LaBovick, a member of Temple Beth Am and one of the attorneys defending it, said Benson is acting out of vengeance, after the temple decided not to renew his contract, which paid him $139,125 in its last year. LaBovick said the temple was willing to let the cantor breach the contract and locate his center within the restricted area, so long as it was far enough that it didn't directly compete with Beth Am.
The Institute for Jewish Living is holding its high holiday services about three miles from the temple.
"We cannot afford to lose significant numbers or even small numbers of our membership in the same geographic entity," LaBovick said. "This is his way of trying to show the temple that the board made a mistake in not renewing his contract."
Benson's attorney, Marc Dobin, said his client is simply trying to make a living after losing his job. Benson said Tuesday his institute poses no threat to an established synagogue such as Beth Am, with staff and funding, while he is working from his kitchen table with a relatively small number of followers.
"The competitive nature of what I'm trying to do is so miniscule and so small at this point it just doesn't make what they're doing," he said. "It seems so mean-spirited and vindictive."
Benson said the fight was particularly hurtful given the timing, leading up to Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, on which believers atone for their sins and apologize to those they have wronged. It begins at sunset Oct. 7.
Given the turn the dispute has taken, the cantor expects no words of regret from the temple.
"Do I expect to receive an apology? No," he said. "What I hope to receive is a legal resolution."
28 Sep, 2011--
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