MONSEY, N.Y. (AP) — For years, ultra-Orthodox Jewish families priced out of increasingly expensive Brooklyn neighborhoods have been turning to the suburbs, where they have taken advantage of open space and cheaper housing to establish modern-day versions of the European shtetls where their ancestors lived for centuries before the Holocaust.
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The expansion of Hasidic communities in New York’s Hudson Valley, the Catskills and northern New Jersey has led to predictable sparring over new housing development and local political control. It has also led to flare-ups of rhetoric that some say is cloaked anti-Semitism.
Now, a pair of violent attacks on such communities, just weeks apart, worry many that intolerance is boiling over.
On Dec. 10, a man and woman killed a police officer and then stormed into a kosher grocery in Jersey City, fatally shooting three people inside before dying in an hourslong gunfight with police. The slayings happened in a neighborhood where Hasidic families had recently been relocating, amid pushback from some local officials who complained about representatives of the community going door to door, offering to buy homes at Brooklyn prices.
And on Saturday, a man rushed into a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, during a Hanukkah celebration, hacking at people with a machete. Five people were wounded, including one who remained hospitalized Tuesday. Federal prosecutors said the man charged in the attack, Grafton Thomas, had handwritten journals containing anti-Semitic comments and a swastika and had researched Hitler’s hatred of Jews online.
At a meeting Monday hosted by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in Rockland County, where Monsey is, some Jewish leaders blamed inflammatory rhetoric on social media and from local elected officials for the rising threat of anti-Semitic violence.
Days after the killings in Jersey City, a local school board member there, Joan Terrell-Paige, assailed Jews as “brutes” on Facebook, saying she believed the killers were trying to send a message with the slaughter. “Are we brave enough to explore the answer to their message?” she asked.
A widely condemned political ad last summer created by a local Republican group claimed that an Orthodox Jewish county legislator was “plotting a takeover” that threatens “our way of life.”
“In the last few years in Rockland County I have seen a rise in hate rhetoric, and I was able to foresee it would end in violence,” said Aron Wieder, the legislator targeted in the video ad. “You have seen on social media where the Orthodox community has been called a cancer, leeches, people who don’t pay taxes. It has become normal and accepted to say derogatory and hateful things about Jewish people.”
Swastikas have been scrawled around the county, and frightened parents are asking law enforcement for more visible security at synagogues and schools, Wieder said.
Bigoted messages have gone unchecked for years, said Rabbi Yisroel Kahan, administrative director of the Oizrim Jewish Council. He pointed to hateful comments on social media and false online rumors that have spilled over into everyday life.
“It has been tolerated for far too long,” he said.
Hasidic families began migrating from New York City to suburban communities in the 1970s, hoping to create the sort of cohesive community some recalled from Europe.
Rockland County, 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of Manhattan, now has the largest Jewish population per capita of any U.S. county, with 31%, or 90,000 residents, being Jewish. The ultra-Orthodox population is highly visible in small towns like Monsey, where bearded Hasidic men in black overcoats and fedoras converse in Yiddish along the sidewalks and Orthodox women wear modest black skirts and head scarves as they go about their daily errands.
In small towns everywhere, resentment against newcomers and “outsiders” isn’t uncommon. Proposals for multi-family housing complexes in sleepy communities of single-family homes often trigger fervent opposition complete with lawn signs and rowdy town board meeting crowds.
Yet the tone of the debates over growth in some areas where Hasidic families have been moving has been more intense.
In East Ramapo, there were legal fights after Hasidic voters, who generally do not send their children to public schools, elected a majority of members of the local school board.
Some towns have enacted zoning changes forbidding new houses of worship.
In the small town of Chester, 60 miles north of New York City in Orange County, New York Attorney General Letitia James recently announced action to fight housing rules that she said were being used to improperly prevent an influx of Hasidic Jews. Local officials have denied anti-Semitism was behind opposition to plans to build over 400 homes in the town of 12,000 residents.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day said the arguments over housing density involve legitimate policy issues and are the biggest challenge when it comes to accommodating he growing Orthodox Jewish community.
The Orthodox community has special needs, he said, like housing for large families and residences within walking distance to a synagogue. That creates “demands that are counter to many of the communities they’re residing in,” Day said.
Questionable zoning decisions, he said, lead to resentment.
“Now the words start. Now the worst words continue. And this is where you have the problem,” Day said.
Whether any of that heated rhetoric was a factor in the recent violence is unclear.
Authorities haven’t offered an explanation yet for what they think motivated the Jersey City attackers or Thomas to select their targets.
Thomas’ lawyer and family have said he has struggled for years with mental illness and hadn’t previously shown any animosity to Jews. He had grown up in New York City but was living with his mother in a small town about a 30 minute drive from Monsey.
Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of the Brooklyn-based United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, said he is offended by references to tensions over housing and population growth in discussions about the Monsey and the Jersey City attacks.
“If you have tensions, what you do is you sit down at a table; that’s how you deal with tensions,” Niederman said. “You don’t go out and murder people. You don’t go out with a butcher knife and almost kill a whole congregation.”
Those violent attacks, he said, were motivated by “pure hatred.”
This is Farmihsing the yotzras kind of. It almost blames the Republicans when all these crimes were committed by blacks. And only in the suburbs? What about all the assaults in NYC? so Bh we weren’t stabbed only knocked out and beaten?
neither attacks ware done by locals
Jews are not moving to “enclaves”. They are moving to neighborhoods in which Jews who dress in a distinct manner are attacked simply for being Jews and looking different. They have a right to move to wherever they want just like all other minorities. Don’t like your new neighbors or the economic expansion including increased home values? You have a right to move elsewhere.
Even if there were some legitimacy to the complaints, the answer is not violence, murder, and other forms of attack. Those need to be answered with the full brunt of the criminal justice system. And the governor and his stupid policies need to be thrown out. If you can’t enforce laws, they become meaningless, and the bedlam of complete anarchy is the predictable result. Sorry, but that cannot ever be permitted to exist.
I hear some of the complaints of the non-Jewish residents in these areas, though I cannot verify whether they are valid. But the open season on Jews is antithetical to America, and should be addressed as a federal crime, not a state one. Now, compare a knock on the door offering a nice price for a house with a machete and handgun.
The blasted ADL and its representatives, specifically Evan Bernstein, was blaming “housing and gentrification”, which are two code words for two many frum Jews moving into “our neighborhood”.
The farbisen Rockland County Republican Party, and if I’m not mistaken Ed Day, were behind a horrible ad a few months ago, which stated in so many words, “THEY (guess who they mean) are ruining our way of life”.
So explain- why are ‘frum’ Yidden hated in so many places? Discussion to follow…
These is just a few heartwarming encounters I had in past few months:
The day before Xmas Eve I was in Valley Cottage on business as I stood waiting to cross Kings Highway a middle aged man in a SUV gave me the finger with both hand followed by a Nazi Salute, three months ago when I was in CVS in Pearl River a woman passed me in the aisle and said F— Jew, I had pennies thrown at me in North Rockland. Every Shobbos as my son walks to shul on S. Airmont Road get epithets yelled and obscene gestures made at him. My Daughter who is a social worker was told by a random stranger “oh you pushing out another for me to support” when she was shopping at a local store. My father who moved to another part of town was deliberately not told where the Parness Center was by the Suffern PD when he was attempting to vote, I can go on and on.
Sorry ERSCD hate is alive and well in Rockland
The root of anti-Semitism is very simple- a goy wants to live a life that’s all about himself. A yid represents a life that is about something higher than just me me me. Obviously none of us are perfect and we all have our own interests too, but we strive to live a life according to the dictates of a Higher Authority. Goyim don’t like that. We remind them, just by existing, that there’s more to life than me me me. So they want us out. But it’s our job to teach them that living for more than yourself is not a threat to your way of life- it will only improve your life
It’s mostly social media that’s to blame. Even poor goyim all have i phones and spend time on social and interact with millions. Instantly, masses are reached for evil or good.
personally I think every jew should carry a knife with him. a few good stabs to the hoodlums who harass them will stop this nonsense in its track.
New York City, LA, Chicago and other Sanctuary Cities where Blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, Chinese and Lohavdil Frumme Yiden live are much much safer for frumme Yiden than any other place in the world. More safe than Jerusalem and 1000 times more safe than any Trump voting Republican Controlled Towns. Do your own math. Close to a million Chareidm in NYC with thousands of shuls and Yeshivos.
Basically they’re saying we don’t want the orthodox not here, not there, not anywhere. No basis or reason for it. Exactly the same hatred and reasoning the European poritzim had in Middle Ages. Just veiled by a mask of sophistication. How ironic, in the melting pot of America, the land of prosperity and religious freedom. Brothers, we will never be safe until the final redemption.
Right or wrong jews and especially frum looking jews are held to a higher standard. I’ll give a few examples. I travel a lot around Brooklyn and Queens we often hear how we yidden park or drive I can tell you there is double parking in non jewish communities too. If a jew would build houses like the Chinese the newspapers would have a field day. I grew up when Boro Park was mostly Italian They were able to make block parties shoot off fireworks on New years and July 4th and blare loud music on Shabbos but if a shul would make a simchas bais Hoshava party the cops would be there in 2minutes. When a frum jew cuts the line in traffic or a store the non jew doesn’t see YOU he sees JEW. Absolutely we have to call out the antisemites and usually, it is, but by building 10 homes where one stood before doesn’t bring them to like us any better. The main thing to remember is the Aisov out there will always find something to complain about We don’t have to help them.
Everyone has an opinion but the true cause of Anti-semitism is the Aibishta. He is trying to talk to us but we refuse to listen so he has to talk louder. Each of us has to look inside ourselves and see how broken we are as a people. Achdas is missing and noone wants to try and repair it. Let us all be kind to all members of our community and stop the harsh judging, insults and accusations and maybe the anti-semitism will stop.
Sister we are safe, this is AMERICA.
Then comes snake oil math & calculations to “prove” it.
Meanwhile, shuls are hiring armed guards and attacks on streets and subways roar away. The denizens chattering away about self defense courses and afraid to walk at night. Sissy, dear, carry mace just in case.Sissies, you’re safe, it’s America.
Any you guys remember me?
Just to let you know that 2+2 =7.
My ‘lil sis Gretchen says it’s safe to post this.
It is not only frum looking Jews (Chassidim, as well as other frum Jews), who are held to a higher standard. Jews, whether they are the most ultra reformed, or conservative, are always held to a higher standard, especially in areas of employment. At one time in the NYPD, in the 1970’s, there was the Knapp Commission, which investigated corrupt cops. Many were indicted, prosecuted, fired, etc. One time, someone told me that a high ranking police inspector, who had learned of a case, whereby two Jewish cops were allegedly being investigated for wrongdoing, made some snide remark which went “it’s about time, something was being done about THEM”. Another time, in Williamsburg, in the late 1960’s, when there was a fight between the Chassidim and the Puerto Ricans, I heard one farbisener Irish cop shout out “Hitler didn’t kill enough Jews”. Another idiotic cop had the gall to tell me “Hitler didn’t kill all of the Jews, only the Chassidim”; that fool, actually believed that. Fortunately, the commander of the 90th Precinct at that time, was a Jews, Captain Ralph Cohen. He mediated the dispute, and made sure that no Chassidim were arrested. In any event, two tough looking Irish detectives were not happy that Cohen got the Chassidim off. One of them came over to me and stated “they got off because they were Jewish”.
I knew of another case, of a Jewish Lieutenant on the NYPD, whom the goyish patrolman and detectives ganged up on, with a phony internal affairs complaint, because he wouldn’t put up with their garbage. I believed then, as I do know, that they never would have made a similar complaint against an Irish or Italian or even a Black cop.
When my parents (z’l), were leaving the Talmud Torah of Flatbush, one evening, after attending a board meeting (in the late 1960’s), they were harassed by anti-semites, who also stated “Hitler didn’t kill enough Jews”. My point is that a anti-semitism has always been prevalent in NYC. At the funeral of a very prominent Rabbi on the lower East Side, over 100 years ago, the goyim through debris from on top of tenements onto the funeral procession.