A homebody from New York squatted for years in the house of a 90-year-old rabbi

This homebody is not kosher.

The 90-year-old rabbi’s life has been turned upside down by a brazen squatter who moved into his living room two years ago and shows no signs of ending anytime soon.

Defendant agitator Roselle Moskowitz, 67, allegedly took advantage of the kindness of Rabbi Meyer Leifer and his family, who gave her a place to stay in her two-bedroom apartment on West 28th Street when she had nowhere to go at dawn. pandemic, according to his daughter Daniella and court records.

Brian Zack/NYPost

Brian Zack/NYPost

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Brian Zack/NYPost

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But the mitzvah mensha was repaid with unimaginable impudence.

Moskowitz pays two pounds rent and spends day after day sitting on the rabbi’s brown suede couch, vegetating, according to Daniella’s and the Manhattan Housing Court’s filings seeking her dismissal.

“She’s just weird. … She just sits and reads or sits and silently looks into space. I really don’t understand what’s going on,” Daniella said.

Mosokowitz, who inexplicably received a letter of support from the office of Manhattan Borough President Mark Levin as she fights to stay in Leifer’s home, confiscated the rabbi’s TV; leaves the windows of her tiny apartment open even when it’s cold, and once barricaded herself in the bathroom and called the police during an argument with one of Leifer’s children, Danielle said.

“Her presence here is so insulting. For several months he was just angry about it and helpless. It just annoys him emotionally,” Daniella said of her father, who is battling dementia. “Let the old man who can hardly walk go to watch the news and TV in his living room.

“He may not survive this,” she said.

A disheveled, masked Moskowitz called 911 when The Post visited the apartment last week.

Daniella Leifer met Moskowitz in February 2020 through an acquaintance who was trying to help her find housing.

The rabbi’s daughter explained that due to the raging pandemic, the family took Meyer Leifer out of town to stay with relatives for several months and allowed Moskowitz to sleep over at his two-bedroom co-op in his absence.

By June, Meyer was back and Daniella paid Moskowitz to rent a room elsewhere, but it didn’t last long. Moskowitz showed up again on the rabbi’s doorstep in February 2021, in need of housing.

“My father didn’t know who she was. He’s a little forgetful,” Danielle Leifer said of the father of five and grandfather of seven.

In October 2021, the rabbi fell in his bedroom and lay alone on the floor with a head injury for several hours while Moskowitz sat in the apartment, the family claims. The wounded Leifer was discovered by a visiting friend. Now he has a permanent assistant.

The family was forced to go to court trying to get Moskowitz out because she stayed there for more than 30 days – the magic number in New York law that gives someone “squatter rights.”

Rabbi Leifer, who was head of the Emunat Yisrael Congregation, or Chelsea Shul, for 42 years, sued Moskowitz in May. She sought emergency rental assistance from the state to prevent litigation, Leifer claims in the lawsuit.

Such assistance was intended to support tenants trying to stay afloat during the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But in some cases, squatters have taken advantage of legal changes brought about by the pandemic, including by the then governor. Cuomo’s moratorium on evictions and allegations of financial hardship that put the case on hold but did not require tenants to provide proof of their money problems.

The eviction attempt should be put on hold because she is an elderly woman and has not been able to hire a lawyer, Moskowitz said in her response. The court denied Moskowitz’s request for rent assistance because she was never a rent-paying tenant.

Brian Zack/NYPost

Brian Zack/NYPost

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Brian Zack/NYPost

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It is unclear why or how Levine’s office became involved in the court case. The Sept. 1 letter to the Housing Court expresses support for the accused squatter but makes no mention of the ailing elderly rabbi whose house she has occupied.

“Legal and judicial structures contributed to this. How can this continue? the rabbi’s daughter said. “Why, after 30 days, an unpaid guest that you are trying to be nice to can just trick you and drag you through the courts? It shouldn’t be.”

Additional report by Brian Zach