From Florida to Hawaii, Chabad Rabbis Fight for the Right to Gather

A Legal Battle in Boca Raton

For fifteen years, Rabbi Naftaly and Henya Hertzel ran the Chabad Israel Center in Boca Raton. For fifteen years, their local Homeowners Association tried to stop them.

The HOA classified Shabbat gatherings as commercial activity. Congregants arriving for services found nails scattered in front of their tires. Drones flew overhead during programs. HOA leaders, Hertzel says, told residents they “didn’t want Jews” in the neighborhood and made antisemitic references.

In 2023, First Liberty Institute — the nation’s largest religious liberty law firm — and Jones Day took the case. In 2026, the HOA settled for approximately $850,000 and agreed to strip anti-religious language from its bylaws. The Hertzels plan to use the settlement money to enhance and further their activities.

What the Law Says

The legal framework that protects religious gatherings rests on two pillars: the First Amendment’s free exercise clause and RLUIPA, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a federal statute that bars government from imposing land-use burdens on religious activity that it doesn’t impose on comparable secular uses. If the zoning code allows a book club in a living room, it has to allow a Torah class.

“There is no functional difference between gathering in your home to read Oprah’s book club selection and gathering for a Shabbat dinner,” said Jeremy Dys, Senior Counsel at First Liberty. “You cannot contract away your guaranteed rights as a citizen.”

But RLUIPA only applies to the government. In most states, private HOAs fall outside its reach. In the Hertzels’ case, First Liberty brought suit under the federal and Florida Fair Housing Acts — not RLUIPA — which prohibit discriminatory housing practices by private entities. In states without comparable fair housing protections, a rabbi facing a hostile HOA has fewer tools.

Not an Isolated Case

The Herztels’ experience is unusual in its severity, but not in its basic shape. A handful of Chabad houses across the country have faced similar collisions — and the cases that have gone to court have produced significant results.

In 1992, Rabbi Aaron and Chanie Konikov moved to Old Westbury, New York and invited neighbors to their rented home for Shabbat dinner and Torah study. The village sued them and their landlord. Had they hosted a barbecue, no one would have filed a thing.

The Konikovs spent the next three decades trying to build a Chabad house. They found a former commercial nursery on a five-lane thoroughfare — a property that had operated without complaint for fifty years — and assembled nine acres over time. The village adopted a religious land-use ordinance in 2001 that a federal court would later find “discriminated against religious use generally.” In March 2026, the case ended with a $19 million court-approved settlement. Chabad is now engaged in obtaining permits to begin building a facility that will serve hundreds of families with sanctuary space, classrooms, and recreational facilities.

“The village was very adept at never issuing a final decision,” said Eric Robinson, the attorney who represented Rabbi Konikov, “knowing that the law required a final decision before someone could go forward in federal court.” Robinson describes a power imbalance built into the system. “A young Rabbi has got no money in his pockets. His job is to go and plant the flag. And any government officials who look at that realize there’s a significant power imbalance — and that time is on their side.”

Similar disputes have played out elsewhere. In Atlantic Beach, Long Island, a village announced plans to seize a building Rabbi Eli and Beila Goodman had purchased for Chabad — weeks after their first Chanukah celebration there. A federal judge blocked the seizure, and the case settled in 2025. In Hawaii, Rabbi Levi and Fraida Gerlitzky were hit with escalating daily fines after the county decided their home gatherings were out of compliance — despite having received HOA approval before moving in. “We came here to help the community,” Rabbi Gerlitzky said. “Not to fight lawsuits.” The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest on his behalf, and negotiations are ongoing.

Why It Keeps Happening

Chabad is, as Rabbi Mendy Rivkin of Towson, Maryland — who went through his own years-long zoning dispute — puts it, “quite possibly one of the only Jewish organizations that’s opening at all outside of established Jewish communities” — and those outposts tend to land in residential neighborhoods. That creates a collision with zoning systems and HOA bylaws that were never designed to account for a rabbi’s living room doubling as a synagogue.

There is no single legislative fix — the cases get resolved one at a time. But the issue is heading to the highest court in the country. On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Grand v. City of University Heights, the case of Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jew in Ohio who in 2021 invited friends to his home for prayers. Before anyone arrived, the city ordered him to cease all “religious assembly” unless he obtained a special use permit — one that would have required converting his home into a house of worship. Lower courts dismissed Grand’s lawsuit, ruling he hadn’t finished the permitting process. The Supreme Court will now decide whether he has to.