An Upper West Side congregation is homeless after the non-sectarian private school where they held services lost its building after declaring bankruptcy.
Darkhei Noam, a lay-led minyan with some 290 families, has been holding its Shabbat and holiday services at the Manhattan Country School, housed in a townhouse at 150 West 85th Street. The congregation has rented space at the school since 2017, the year the progressive private school moved into the building. (Darkhei Noam’s lease at MCS was set to expire in 2034, according to bankruptcy documents.)
But as of Thursday, June 19, the school, which was sued by its lender for nonpayment last October, has been shut out of its former building — and so has its synagogue tenant. As the future the Manhattan Country School — which was founded in 1966 and is known for its diversity and sliding-scale tuition fees — remains uncertain, Darkhei Noam members and leaders are scrambling to find a new home…