Sidley recently achieved a significant victory on behalf of Chabad Lubavitch of the Beaches, a New York-based religious nonprofit organization. In November 2021, Chabad acquired a long-vacant commercial property to use as a center for Jewish worship, outreach, and education; Chabad celebrated the acquisition in December 2021 by holding a Hanukkah celebration. Within days of the Hanukkah celebration, Village leadership announced plans to seize the property through eminent domain. Sidley secured a federal court injunction halting the attempted taking, with the court noting that the Village’s decision appeared to be “intolerant of Chabad’s members’ religious beliefs.”
Through hard-fought discovery, Sidley obtained evidence of Village leadership’s animus towards Chabad. In private emails and text messages, Village officials freely and frequently engaged in open anti-Chabad and anti-Orthodox sentiment and trafficked in vile antisemitic tropes, including that Orthodox Jews are “buying the world,” “procreate” too much, and “don’t tip.” One senior Village official stated that “most people don’t want the Chabad and just don’t want to say it. Any secular Jew doesn’t want them,” to which the then-Mayor agreed “Very true.” And the Village’s senior land use official privately mused that the Village should “string an Eruv around the village with Xmas lights” to “keep Chabbad [sic] out of the village.”
The parties initially reached a settlement agreement in late 2023. As part of that settlement, in early 2024, Chabad submitted a special permit application to enable religious use of the property consistent with its mission. However, in November, the Village’s zoning board denied the application, including a request to use the building for religious purposes. Despite Chabad’s attempts to address the denials cooperatively, the Village’s continued refusal to grant the necessary approvals forced Chabad to terminate the settlement agreement and resume litigation. The parties executed a new settlement agreement in July 2025.
Under a court-approved consent decree called for by the new settlement, the Village has permanently agreed to abandon any further eminent domain actions or interference with Chabad’s ownership and religious use of the property, and to grant specified permits and zoning approvals necessary for Chabad’s use of the property. The settlement also includes a US$950,000 payment to Chabad, federal court oversight to ensure continued compliance, and public statements by Village officials welcoming Chabad to Atlantic Beach. This resolution ensures Chabad’s long-term ability to serve the community from its Atlantic Beach property without further government obstruction.
The Sidley team was led by Daniel Feith and Daniel Hay (both Washington, D.C.), and included Peter Bruland, Jeremy Rozansky, Levi Brown, and Brooke Boyd (all in Washington, D.C.), as well as firm alumni David Rody, Robert Smith, and John Lee. Sidley achieved this result in partnership with co-counsel from the First Liberty Institute and the Harvard Religious Freedom Clinic.
