Tuesday, September 09, 2014
Village trying to prevent Hasidic Jews from relocating there: suit
A tiny upstate New York village in the Catskills is waging a rampant anti-Semitic campaign to prevent members of Brooklyn’s Hasidic Jewish community from relocating there — and taking over their quiet, rural hood, a stunning new federal lawsuit charges.
Various parties seeking to build and operate a 396-unit townhouse complex and a private religious school in Bloomingburg, NY, socked village officials Monday with a $25 million religious-discrimination lawsuit, which accuses them of conspiring to block a mass influx of Satmar Hasidic families to the small village of roughly 420 residents. The village is part of the town of Mamakating, which is also a co-defendant in the Manhattan federal court suit and accused of government-sponsored anti-Semitism.
“The village and town are seeking to use their political power, economic pressure, zoning laws, and sheer intimidation to prevent a certain type of people from joining their community,” the suit says.
“This type of intolerance might sound like a story from the Civil Rights era in the South. But it is unfolding right now in a municipality just 75 miles from New York City.”
The suit claims that village and town officials have snubbed the law for more than a year by continuing to hold up what should be “routine” approvals for a school run by the Bloomingburg Jewish Education Center. It claims Hasidic families living in Bloomingburg are now forced under religious obligations to home school their children or send them to private schools “well outside the area.”
The suit also alleges that Bloomingburg has purposely held up developer Shalom Lamm’s “Chestnut Ridge” townhouse complex and that Village Mayor Frank Gerardi got elected “on an express platform of blocking further immigration of Hasidic Jews into Bloomingburg.”
When reached on his cell phone Monday evening, Gerardi said he was unaware of the suit and couldn’t discuss it because he was driving.
But the village’s former deputy mayor, Dr. Clifford Teich, told The Post that “nobody wants the Hasidics here because there was a lie to bring them in.”
Teich said he voted to approve a new, gated community of 125 luxury homes with an 18-hole golf course, swimming pools and tennis courts that village residents could use. However, the original developer, Duane Roe sold the property to Lamm, who upped the plan to 396 townhouses, Teich added.
“I have nothing against the Hasidics — I’m Jewish myself, and they have a right to live anywhere, it’s the United States — but I was dealt a phony deck of cards,” Teich said.
“They dangled the carrot in front of me, and it turned into an onion.”
Teich said anger over the new development led to his ouster from office. He claims he got death threats and that his wife’s car window was shot out after he criticized the influx of Hasidic residents earlier this year.
In June, the village voted to dissolve its planning and zoning boards with Mamakating assuming responsibilities after the boards came under fire from residents for approving Hasidic-backed projects.
Lamm, meanwhile, is the subject of a federal probe into the voter fraud, sources said. The FBI in March raided about 20 other village properties he owns as part of an investigation into whether the developer tried to fix village elections to his benefit.
A Sept. 30 vote is scheduled to decide whether the entire village of Bloomingburg should be dissolved.
http://nypost.com/2014/09/09/village-trying-to-prevent-hasidic-jews-from-relocating-there-suit/
Various parties seeking to build and operate a 396-unit townhouse complex and a private religious school in Bloomingburg, NY, socked village officials Monday with a $25 million religious-discrimination lawsuit, which accuses them of conspiring to block a mass influx of Satmar Hasidic families to the small village of roughly 420 residents. The village is part of the town of Mamakating, which is also a co-defendant in the Manhattan federal court suit and accused of government-sponsored anti-Semitism.
“The village and town are seeking to use their political power, economic pressure, zoning laws, and sheer intimidation to prevent a certain type of people from joining their community,” the suit says.
“This type of intolerance might sound like a story from the Civil Rights era in the South. But it is unfolding right now in a municipality just 75 miles from New York City.”
The suit claims that village and town officials have snubbed the law for more than a year by continuing to hold up what should be “routine” approvals for a school run by the Bloomingburg Jewish Education Center. It claims Hasidic families living in Bloomingburg are now forced under religious obligations to home school their children or send them to private schools “well outside the area.”
The suit also alleges that Bloomingburg has purposely held up developer Shalom Lamm’s “Chestnut Ridge” townhouse complex and that Village Mayor Frank Gerardi got elected “on an express platform of blocking further immigration of Hasidic Jews into Bloomingburg.”
When reached on his cell phone Monday evening, Gerardi said he was unaware of the suit and couldn’t discuss it because he was driving.
But the village’s former deputy mayor, Dr. Clifford Teich, told The Post that “nobody wants the Hasidics here because there was a lie to bring them in.”
Teich said he voted to approve a new, gated community of 125 luxury homes with an 18-hole golf course, swimming pools and tennis courts that village residents could use. However, the original developer, Duane Roe sold the property to Lamm, who upped the plan to 396 townhouses, Teich added.
“I have nothing against the Hasidics — I’m Jewish myself, and they have a right to live anywhere, it’s the United States — but I was dealt a phony deck of cards,” Teich said.
“They dangled the carrot in front of me, and it turned into an onion.”
Teich said anger over the new development led to his ouster from office. He claims he got death threats and that his wife’s car window was shot out after he criticized the influx of Hasidic residents earlier this year.
In June, the village voted to dissolve its planning and zoning boards with Mamakating assuming responsibilities after the boards came under fire from residents for approving Hasidic-backed projects.
Lamm, meanwhile, is the subject of a federal probe into the voter fraud, sources said. The FBI in March raided about 20 other village properties he owns as part of an investigation into whether the developer tried to fix village elections to his benefit.
A Sept. 30 vote is scheduled to decide whether the entire village of Bloomingburg should be dissolved.
http://nypost.com/2014/09/09/village-trying-to-prevent-hasidic-jews-from-relocating-there-suit/
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