A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that challenged membership restrictions at a Brooklyn synagogue and sought to permit female congregants to vote at meetings.

Brooklyn state Supreme Court Judge Herbert Kramer ruled that a bitter dispute that has divided members of the Sephardic Congregation of Har Ha Lebanon belongs to “the realm of theological inquiry” and not to the courts.

Judge Kramer ruled earlier this month the court lacks authority to decide religious questions in the case. The suit was filed in 2002 by four male members of Har Ha Lebanon against the congregation’s board of trustees.

“It’s the correct decision because a court should not involve itself in religious disputes,” said Gil Feder, a Manhattan lawyer who represents the board.

The four men accused the trustees of turning the congregation into “a personal expression of power and wealth” and of trying to alienate members who did not agree with them.

Their objections centered on 1998 changes to the congregation’s by-laws. The changes barred Jews of non-Lebanese descent from being elected to membership in the congregation, according to the suit, which also contends the changes struck language in the bylaws that implied the wives of members could vote at meetings.

The dispute deeply disturbed Har Ha Lebanon, a white-brick synagogue in Midwood. Many of the estimated 150 Sephardic families in the congregation left Lebanon in the 1970s and 1980s following a civil war there.

Mr. Feder said the membership quarrel rocked the tight-knit congregation, leading to bitter exchanges. Some members left. “The synagogue cannot withstand more upheaval,” Mr. Feder wrote in a letter to the court. The congregation’s president, Dr. Albert Khaski, said he hoped the congregation now would go on in peace and that restrictions on non-Lebanese Jews now only apply to board members and that women have never voted in the congregation.

“In all Sephardic congregations, the women cannot vote,” he said.

A lawyer representing the four men did not return a call for comment.