כ׳ תשרי ה׳תשפ״ו | October 12, 2025
Reform Sukkah Misleads Visitors to Prospect Park
Visitors to Prospect Park were pleased this Chol Hamoed to find a mehudar-looking firm-wall sukkah standing near the Grand Army Plaza entrance. But upon closer inspection, the structure is clearly possul.
Visitors to Prospect Park were pleased this Chol Hamoed to find a mehudar-looking firm-wall sukkah standing near the Grand Army Plaza entrance. But upon closer inspection, the structure is clearly possul.
The sukkah is located just off the main path near the entrance used by cyclists and runners, along a smaller trail on the left side. A bit further down, under a canopy of trees, stands the structure whose sechach is entirely shaded, rendering it invalid according to halacha.
The Sukkah was erected by Congregation Beth Elohim (CBE), a Reform congregation located at 274 Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn. While outwardly resembling a mehudardike sukkah, the trees above it render it non-kosher.
Local Jewish residents who passed by expressed concern that such a display, in a public and heavily trafficked area, could easily mislead onlookers. “It looks like a real sukkah, but anyone who knows the halachos can see that it’s not kosher,” one Crown Heights resident told Anash.org. “It’s important to make people aware, since so many Yidden pass it during Chol Hamoed visits to the park.”
COMMENTS
Gut Moed
Instead of announcing that its posed, why don’t you offer to assist them in fixing it?
Maybe because anash.org is a news site, not a construction company.
Caution should taken when writing the name of their “congregation” as we follow the opinion of the Alter Rebbe that kedusha applies to translations and transliterations.
very true
BH
There is a Kosher Sukkah at the Lincoln Rd. entrance to Prospect Park that has been erected, for the last 8 years, by Chabad Of Prospect Lefferts Gardens for the hundreds of visitors to the park over Yom Tov and the local Jewish population. Chabad of PLG has had a permanent location at 132 Lincoln Rd. since Purim of this year and has, with Hashem’s help seen tremendous Hatzlocha serving as a lighthouse fro the The many Yidden who have moved into the neighborhood over the last 10-15 years. There is just so much to be accomplished even though it is so close to home; and sometimes precisely because it is so close to home, it requires tremendous commitment and patience to help cultivate the Pintele Yid that no doubt lies within EVERY single Jew. The public is encouraged to take the opportunity of a free moment and do Mivtzoim in the area and partner with us. May this year be a year of true Yiddishe simchah with the coming of Moshiach NOW!!