HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – A South Florida Jewish family says they received a threatening letter from their condominium association as they mark a traditional holiday.
The association says they can’t celebrate outside.
“A sukkah cannot be underneath another object like a building, and it cannot be under a living tree,” Farrell Goldsmith told Local 10 News.
The sukkah looks like a tent and is a place for people to gather, marking a week-long Jewish holiday.
For those who celebrate it, the meaning is profound.
“Of escaping racism and anti-Semitism,” Adi Soozin said.
But those placing their sukkahs outside their homes at the Greens of Emerald Hills neighborhood in Hollywood are now being hit with a legal notice to take them down.
The letter sent by an attorney for the association to at least one resident states that sukkahs placed outside the home violate the condo association’s rules, claiming driveways are common areas which must not be obstructed.
It also threatens legal recourse if the sukkahs are not removed.
“It’s commemorating the Jews when we came out of slavery in Egypt,” Goldsmith said.
Those who want their sukkahs outside see it as a religious holiday decoration they should have the right to have outside their home, much like Halloween decorations others have.
“It’s really not the same thing because a Halloween decoration doesn’t have people congregating,” the association’s president Carol Suss said.
Suss believes this isn’t a religious issue, but says it’s about the rules.
“I’m Jewish,” she said. “I have nothing against sukkahs.”
Suss stressed that families are allowed to place their Sukkahs behind their home, just not in front or on their driveways.