For a group of Jewish residents at a Christian independent living facility in Reston, this year’s Rosh Hashana was anything but festive. It began with a simple request from residents to host a party celebrating the Jewish New Year in Hunters Woods Fellowship House’s common room on Sept. 30. It ended with a call to police complaining about the elderly celebrants, who included several World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors.
Now, the daughter of one resident — outraged by what she says was an act of religious discrimination — is reaching out to the local Jewish community and the state Department of Housing and Urban Development to fight on her father’s behalf.
The elderly residents are part of a tiny, tight-knit community of Russian expatriates. Four are World War II veterans; two are Holocaust survivors. About 20 of them showed up at the Hunters Woods common room on Sept. 30 for a planned Rosh Hashana celebration. But they were told that management hadn’t approved their request to use the room, even though the room was empty.
Resident Azik Goldovsky, 86, submitted a reservation request for the room two weeks earlier, but never received a written response. His daughter, Tatiana Goldovsky, said a manager told her she would not grant permission for the party because it would prevent others from using the common room — even though other groups often reserved the room and no one was using it at the time.
When the group was denied entrance to the empty common room, Tatiana Goldovsky said, the 22 residents in their 80s and 90s, 12 guests, and three aides moved to picnic tables outside.
That’s when Hunters Woods called the police.
The manager claimed that the elderly residents had moved furniture outside for the party and that one partygoer had pushed an employee, said Fairfax County police, who responded.
An officer who arrived on the scene didn’t see any laws being broken and didn’t even file an incident report, police said.
Charles Wortman, president of Fellowship Square, the organization that runs Hunters Woods and several other low-income, independent living facilities in the Washington area, denied there was any discrimination. On its website, the organization says it operates “out of an abiding sense of Christian mission.”
Wortman said in an email that he “takes exception to comments suggesting an atmosphere of prejudice at our property” and added that the company provides “people of many ethnicities and religious backgrounds a safe and caring environment.” A Hunters Woods manager declined comment.
Tatiana Goldovsky, however, said the September incident wasn’t the first of its kind. Last year, a manager told her father and others they couldn’t host a Hanukkah celebration in the common room and suggested the facility’s annual Christmas celebration should suffice, she said.
Goldovsky is filing complaints with the state Department of Housing and Urban Development and Fairfax County Fair Housing.
Donny Kirsch of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said his group is investigating what happened.
Goldovsky said her father and his friends were “devastated” by the turn of events but have tried to keep their spirits up.
“After [the Rosh Hashana celebration], they called me and said, ‘We won, we won. We had our holiday,’ ” she said. “But you can’t go through each holiday like this.”
