For six years, Chabad Loft has served as a hub for Jewish life in Greenwich Village, operating from the bottom of a quaint rowhouse at 10 E. Eighth St.
Now, the space — aptly dressed with painted exposed brick, gold-tone light pendants and plush jewel-tone furniture for its trendy young congregants — is facing eviction.
Rabbi Jerry Bankhalter is embroiled in an acrimonious fight with his landlord over ambiguous lease terms that involve the validity of a lease extension that was never signed.
Bankhalter, known as Rabbi Yakov, claims he has two years remaining on the lease. But the landlord claims the synagogue is a month-to-month tenant paying far below market rate.
In June, the landlord sued for eviction in housing court in Manhattan. And now, a window sign even says the space is available for rent — a total of 2,800 square feet on two levels.
“The whole street is filled with vacant storefronts,” the rabbi told The Post. “The space is weird. There is not much interest in a seven-step walk down with 9-foot ceilings and pillars in the middle of the space. It is not handicapped accessible. It is a very hard sell. We are perfect tenants to them.”
The monthly rent for what is known as “the Kavanah Space” is $7,000.
“The landlord is trying to bully the rabbi out of there,” said Angelo Bisceglie, the rabbi’s lawyer, who in July sued the landlord in Manhattan Supreme Court for promissory estoppel, breach of contract, fraud, deceit and negligent misrepresentation.
Not so, according to Gregory Bougopoulos, the lawyer for the landlord, then known as Lynch Family Associates.
“This is a disagreement over the legal status and appropriate terms of a commercial tenancy,” Bougopoulos said in a statement to The Post.
“The tenant has, for years, paid well below market rate and currently has no lease in effect,” he said. “When the property owner sought to resolve the expired lease and negotiate new terms, the tenant repeatedly indicated that he would engage in that process. Ultimately, however, he declined to enter into discussions regarding a market-rate tenancy. The tenant disputes this account, and that disagreement is appropriately a matter for the legal process to resolve.”
The rabbi, who formerly lived near Union Square, came to the building just before COVID shut down the city, occupying the top-floor residential space for a rent of $8,500. That rent dropped during the pandemic and settled at $7,000. The rabbi now resides there — above a hair salon called Salon V — with his pregnant wife, his mother-in-law and his three young sons.
During COVID, the nascent congregation used a nearby empty storefront whose landlord was an observant Jew, Rabbi Yakov told The Post. “We didn’t have a real synagogue. We had more of an online community.”
So when the space below his home came available, he happily signed on, also for $7,000 a month. The original two-year commercial lease was signed in 2021, as the city was emerging from the pandemic and the previous tenant, the MNDFL mediation studio, departed. That lease came with a five-year option to renew, until mid-2028.
The Lynch family bought the building for $8 million from New York University in 2008, according to city records. The space had once been the long-time home of the Patricia Field boutique.
“Over the past several years, this location has developed an identity as the Kavanah Space,” Rabbi Yakov told The Post. “People can find hospitality, a meal, friendship, learning, spiritual connection and a sense of belonging. For many people, particularly those who may not have family or an established community in New York, it has become a second home.”
Over time,…