The shtetl is alive and kicking in New York

[JohnLocke]

The shtetl is alive and kicking in New York
By Amiram Barkat -- Haaretz
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
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Two weeks ago, shortly before Shabbat, an unusual request arrived in Thompson, a quiet town in Sullivan County in upstate New York. A group of Viznitz Hasidim living in the area wanted their community to be recognized as a village to be named Ateret. Their representative, Haim Fried, said that the purpose of establishing the village was to allow the group to control zoning and building in their area, and to plan housing suitable for large ultra-Orthodox families.
"We're good neighbors who pay taxes and contribute to the economy," Fried told a local newspaper reporter. The response from Town Supervisor Anthony Cellini was chilly. "I'm not really enthusiastic about the request," he said. "I suppose it will wind up in court."
(...)
But some in U.S. academic circles consider these towns a success. A team of researchers from universities in New York and California studying the largest of the three, Kiryas Yoel, believe this spells the beginning of a broad phenomena, and that in the coming year numerous "American shtetls" will crop up throughout New York, and perhaps elsewhere in the country.
Until World War II, there were hardly any ultra-Orthodox in the U.S. Now there are an estimated quarter of a million, many concentrated in neighborhoods like Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The move outside the New York metropolis, which began in the 1950s and `60s, has been explained by overcrowding and the appearance of new neighbors, blacks or Hispanics, in ultra-Orthodox areas.
In 1954, a group of Skverer Hasidim bought agricultural land in Rockland County, an hour's drive north of New York City. In 1961, New Square was founded as the first ultra-Orthodox town in America. Following that success, the Satmar leader, Reb Yoel Teitelbaum, instructed his disciples to buy land in the Orange County township of Monroe, north of Rockland. In 1977, the place was designated the independent community of Kiryas Yoel. The third town, Kaser, was founded in Rockland in 1990 by Viznitz Hasidim.
High birthrates and exodus from the city has caused a meteoric rise in the population of the ultra-Orthodox towns. Kiryas Yoel, which occupies 2.8 square kilometers, is now home to 17,000 people, and growing at an annual rate of 8 percent. Average monthly income per family in the three towns does not exceed $1,000.
Kiryas Yoel residents recently managed to purchase hundreds of dunams, through a front man of Italian origin, which will permit the town to double in size. A legal battle is still raging surrounding Kiryas Yoel's application to be hooked up to New York's main water carrier, to a pipeline that can supply the needs of 60,000 residents.
(...)
According to Prof. David Myers of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, "what makes Haredi towns like Kiryas Yoel a unique and fascinating phenomenon in the U.S. is that, here's a community which, on the one hand, secludes itself and completely rejects the values of the western society around it, and on the other hand, does not hesitate to engage to the fullest the privileges and means that society has granted it."
(...)
The secret of these towns' power lies in their block voting capacity - their ability to harness thousands of votes for friendly politicians, which is already making a crucial difference in rural counties.
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Read the rest here.

[JohnLocke]

1. Kick (nt).

[IA_Seth]

2. Can anyone explain to me...

What the difference between these villages and the areas that want to practice Sharia law?

I don't think religiously-segregated villages/towns/cities are a good thing...

[robcon]

4. Huge difference. HUGE DIFFERENCE from Sharia law..

There is no 'Jewish law' in Kiryas Joel. There are a lot of religiously-driven politicians (like the Mormons in Utah) who act largely on behalf of the religious community. But there is no separate law, no overruling of NY State law or U.S. law. Nothing like Sharia.

[IA_Seth]

5. Ok...

But the purpose of these communities seems to be to benefit one particular religious group over the "regular" people, evidenced by the very fact that they are needed in the first place and the fact that they seek re-zoning laws to promote their particular way of life.

Where is the line drawn then?

[robcon]

6. Their religious practice requires them to live near a shul.

Orthodox Jews can't use a car on the Sabbath to drive to the temple. So they tend to congregate in densely packed communities around the temples.

The politicians of Kiryas Joel try to benefit the people of Kiryas Joel, IMO. Years ago, they attempted to get a separate public school district for that town, so that kids with disabilities and special needs could be handled for free (since there would be none, or very few, non-Orthodox students in that district they could use the disabled students' services.) The courts ruled against them repeatedly - stating that the purpose of the separate district (all Orthodox Jews, of course, send their kids to private, Jewish schools) would be to set up a religious definition of a school district for the purpose of using state funds.

[AlienGirl]

7. This is more like what the Amish and Mennonites have

than like anything resembling Sharia law.

Tucker

[Copperred]

3. Violations of Church & State?

Not sure what all the issues are here....

But Barry Lind at Americans United for Seperation of Church & State maybe interested in them.

www.au.org