JEWISH CENTER - Board: It's Up to Us, Not You

Having heard rumors that the board of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons would not renew Rabbi David Gelfand's contract when it expires in June, over 200 members of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons gathered on the center's lawn on Sunday morning to affirm their support for the rabbi.

At the meeting, in what they believed to be a binding vote, members voted unanimously to give the rabbi a three-year extension of his contract, voting both in person and by proxy. The unofficial tally, according to Leonard Gordon, a board member and one of the meeting's organizers, was 802 in favor of a contract extension.

"It was a very strong statement by the members that they want the rabbi to have a three-year contract," Mr. Gordon said Tuesday. More than 30 of those attending spoke before the vote was taken. "Many people spoke of what the rabbi had done for their marriage or during their illness or time of trouble; of how he made them understand and be proud of Judaism, of how much they learned from the rabbi," Mr. Gordon wrote in a letter to the board's president, Donald Zucker.

Laura Hoguet, the board's attorney, said yesterday that Sunday's meeting was not "called pursuant to the constitution of the Jewish Center" and that the board has no legal obligation to recognize its outcome.

"Under the state law, the board must recommend or approve and the congregation must approve by a majority the termination of the employment of a rabbi or the hiring of a new rabbi," Ms. Hoguet said. "We're not talking about the termination of the rabbi, we're talking about whether to renew his contract. Under the constitution of the Jewish Center and the law of the state, renewal of an existing contract of the rabbi is a matter for the board to decide."

Mr. Gordon interpreted the law differently. "Our position is that the rabbi has now got a three-year legal and binding contract," he said.

Because there was no qualified representative from the board to count them, the ballots are being stored along with the petitions asking for a meeting and the proxies "in a safe place to await a count with a representative or representatives authorized to do so for the board," Mr. Gordon wrote.

In his letter to Mr. Zucker, Mr. Gordon described the events of the meeting and informed the board that members have signed a petition demanding another meeting on Oct. 9 to ratify and confirm the results of Sunday's meeting, direct the board to execute the contract extension, and take other actions "to reestablish a relationship of respect and good will between the rabbi and the board of trustees."

The Oct. 9 meeting would fall between Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

"We understand that many people went to this meeting looking for information," Barnet Liberman, the chairman of the board's personnel committee, said in a statement issued by Ms. Hoguet. "The board does not want to engage in this controversy before the high holidays, but after the holidays are over the board looks forward to sharing its evaluation [of the rabbi] with the congregation."

"The congregation can't force the board to make a decision on the contract," Ms. Hoguet said. "The people on the board have to act in accordance with their beliefs and their perceptions and their judgment. . . . The board cares about what the congregation thinks. The board cares a great deal about what the congregation thinks, but Mr. Gordon's group of supporters is not representative of the congregation."

The congregation includes about 750 families, Ms. Hoguet said, and generally a family has two votes.

According to Mr. Gordon, the only dispute at Sunday's meeting was whether to get rid of the board or to "convert" its members to "people who would give the rabbi the respect he is entitled to."

"I'm weighted down with the number of olive branches I have extended to the board," he said Tuesday.