This week's NY Mag piece on the new Soho Synagogue, by Heeb Magazine Arts editor Shana Liebman, describes it as a "boutique" (per hip young founder Rabbi Dovi Scheiner) organized on a grassroots level - yet Scheiner's links to Chabad-Lubavitch, the devoutly Orthodox Jewish organization known for its prosyletizing and ubiquitous outreach programs, suggest that it is anything but.

Scheiner writes for Chabad.org and is the editor of Kosher Spirit Magazine, a publication of Chabad-Lubavitch affiliate OK Kosher (of which he is also the PR Director).

Even without a cursory Google search, the attendees at the launch party suggested a Chabad presence, from reggae musician/Chabad devotee Matisyahu to Chabad-affiliated Rabbi Chiam Fogelman from Crown Heights.

With all of these links to Chabad-Lubovitch it's odd that a Jewish-beat writer like Liebman would fail to notice (or, at least, mention) such an obvious connection. If Liebman and her editors at New York noticed and failed to mention, it's a pretty glaring omission. If they didn't, they got duped:

All we really know from this artile is that some Lubavitch types have gotten so good at PR efforts that they can create the illusion of being an exclusive enclave when they're really part of the biggest Jewish outreach effort in the world -- and that New York Magazine and Shana Liebman bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Either way, it doesn't smell entirely kosher to us.

Can a Shul Be Cool? [New York]