August 25, 2007 / Carroll Gardens–Cobble Hill / Perspective / Brooklyn South

Wandering Jews still on the move

By Ariella Cohen

The Brooklyn Paper

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A medieval legend tells of a Jew cursed to wander until Judgment Day because of a bad run-in with Jesus. In Brooklyn, it’s a karmic — and financial— arrangement with real-estate developers that keeps one pair of so-called Wandering Jews on the move.

Like figures from old European folktales, Rabbi DovBer Pinson and his wife, Rebbetzin Rochie Pinson travel from one home to another, knowing that one day they will get the boot. Hasidic mystics, the Pinsons have studied what they call the “deeper dimension of Torah” in a former factory in DUMBO and held rollicking, Kabbalah-infused and kosher-wine-fueled Shabbat dinners in an ex-ironworks in Boerum Hill. (Orthodox reggae-man and MTV darling Matisyahu and the Hasidic rapper Y-Love were occasional guests.)

This fall, they will move to a graffiti-covered plant on Union Street between Hoyt and Bond streets, where they will pray over the oil-slicked water of the Gowanus Canal — until, of course, they have to move their nomadic Iyyun Jewish center again.

It’s an odd arrangement, even for a place that is known as the Institute for the Exploration of the Deeper Dimension of Torah. The post-industrial transience, reminiscent of a mid-1990s rave, however, can be described in simple capitalist terms.

Instead of buying a temple in this time of ungodly prices-per-square-foot, the Pinsons have turned Torah study into what is known in the real-estate industry as a property tax-abating interim use.

The owner of Iyyun’s new home at 450 Union St. tried several years ago to gain the necessary city approvals to demolish the former foundry and replace it with a seven-story condo building. Opponents to the residential redevelopment of the area successfully defeated the proposal, and the building has sat dormant since. Now, plans are on hold until the city completes a rezoning of the Gowanus Canal area, and Iyyun can be the owner’s spiritual sublet.

The center’s last two homes, 155 Washington St. in DUMBO and 316 Bergen St. in Boerum Hill, began their conversion (to condos) shortly after the Pinsons were given wandering orders. If all goes well for the Pinson’s landlord, it is likely that his Union Street plant will eventually become part of the Gowanus Village development that builder Shaya Boymelgreen has proposed for the area.

The Rebbetzin thinks that this time they should have enough time to settle in and unroll their Torahs before moving again

“They can’t tear down the building until zoning laws are changed so we are safe for the next few years,” said Pinson.

She describes the group’s benefactors as “people who have space and want to have a Jewish presence there.” The rest of us know this group as the people who own buildings and hold onto them for years until local zoning laws, or the market changes. Then they build condos that most of us can’t afford.

If you ask me, the whole thing would be far more kosher if, say, the Pinsons (and the rest of us) could afford a temple of our own, one that would be invulnerable to the whims of the market. Wouldn’t that be mystical?

Ariella Cohen, a staff writer at The Brooklyn Paper, lives in Red Hook.

The Kitchen Sink

Fame: Rapper Talib Kweli has moved to Carroll Gardens. Listen for the CG shoutout this Sunday at the 10th Annual Black August Concert, in Times Square. …

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development was expected to bring a plan for three new residential buildings in the Columbia Street Waterfront District to Community Board 6 on Thursday, after The Stoop went to press. Residents of the low-rise nabe were preparing to give city officials an earful on a 102-unit development proposed for 101 Baltic St., near Congress Street. “Most of the buildings here are two, three, or four stories high. This sounds like it will be too tall and dense for the neighborhood,” warned Mike Webster, a member of the Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper