Hasidic residents continue to protest planned Wal-Mart

A planned 215,000-square-foot Wal-mart in Monsey continues to draw community ire more than two years after it was unveiled. The community of 28,000, mostly Hasidic Jews, say the store will disrupt their lives. They say they are fearful for the safety of families walking to synagogue. They wonder if frowned-upon items like bikinis and lingerie will be on display for all to see. They worry the outsiders who shop there will transform the atmosphere of the quiet, sheltered community.

"The reason a lot of us came to live in Monsey is because we wanted to raise our families in a safe place, away from the influences of the outside world," resident Yossi Weinberger told the New York Times. "I'm not sure it will be easy to do it if we have such a gigantic piece of the outside world move to our town."

Wal-Mart public affairs manager Philip Serghini has visited the community at least six times since October, according to the Times. He has also met in private with about two dozen rabbis to explain the company's proposal and to listen to their concerns.

The nation's largest retailer has heeded to public concern before, and sometimes hires local architects to meld stores into particular landscapes. Company officials say they have already agreed to conceal magazine covers that may be deemed offensive, such as ones with celebrities in provocative attire.

"The rabbis have a lot of concerns, and some of them are similar to those we've heard from other communities," Serghini told the Times. "But there are very specific elements to this experience. Definitely, this is the most unique place I've ever been to."

The planned Wal-Mart Supercenter would occupy a 22-acre site on Route 59, about three miles from access ramps to the New York State Thruway.

HASIDIC 'HITCHHIKE' HORROR IN B'KLYN

July 6, 2007 -- A knife-wielding man attacked a pregnant woman who had accepted a ride from him in Brooklyn, cops said yesterday.

The 21-year-old woman - who, like her attacker, is Hasidic - had been waiting at a bus stop on Kent Avenue at Wallabout Street in Williamsburg when the man pulled up in a gray minivan at 11 a.m. Tuesday and offered to take her to Borough Park.

She hopped in the back seat; hitchhiking is fairly common among Hasids in the two neighborhoods.

The driver was in his 20s, of medium build, and dressed in typical Hasidic clothes, hat and beard, and spoke fluent Yiddish, sources said.

As they were driving, he told her he was from out of town and had to get a GPS navigator in the back.

Cops said he pulled over at Adams and York streets, pulled out a knife and tried to attack the woman.

She fought him off, but was slashed on her right hand before she escaped, and the man drove off.

Isaac Abraham, a Hasidic community leader , said it's an "everyday thing" for Hasids to give rides to one another, and that the corner is a spot where people often wait for a lift.

"We are very concerned. It's hard to believe that this guy figured, 'Let me pick 11 o'clock in midday and try strike one,' " said Abraham.

"There may be other victims that were too afraid to fight."

Hasidic Jews Fight NY Village Code Barring Rabbinical College

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WHITE PLAINS N.Y.
Several Hasidic rabbis have gone to federal court for the right to build a rabbinical college that would violate zoning laws in a suburban village.

In a lawsuit filed late Monday, the rabbis and the Rabbinical College of Tartikov Inc. claim that zoning regulations in Pomona, 30 miles from New York City, have been used to exclude the planned college and are "the direct result of fierce anti-Hasidic opposition in the local community."

The plaintiffs have not even tried for variances because village leaders "have made it clear they would never approve construction of this college," said plaintiffs' attorney Paul Savad.

The village, which has about 3,200 residents, recently refused to allow the sponsors to submit plans without going through the zoning system.

Village attorney Doris Ulman said the complaint "is full of innuendo, undocumented statements, misstatements and lies," including some about her. She said the plaintiffs have no standing to sue because they cannot show they've been harmed.

Ulman said it was difficult to comment on the planned rabbinical college because village leaders have yet to see any official plans or applications. She said the complaint filed Monday, which mentions plans for "places of worship, religious educational facilities, religious courts, libraries of Jewish texts and accessory student housing," is the most detailed document they have.

The plaintiffs are seeking housing for 250 students and their families.

The 130-acre site is currently zoned for single-family homes, although a religious camp is using the property legally, Ulman said. The rabbinical group should go through normal channels before deciding whether to sue, she said.

Ulman said village officials have never "discussed or said or done anything to indicate that they are against any religion or any religious use." She said ordinances have recently been liberalized to accommodate yeshivas and dormitories.

Savad, the plaintiff's attorney, said, however, that while village ordinances allow for zoning variances for accredited educational institutions, the rabbinical college would not be accredited because there is no accrediting body for such schools.

So the plaintiffs are invoking a federal law that has been used successfully in the region before. Known as the Religious Land Use Act, it says a religious organization that would otherwise be denied can win a variance if there is no compelling reason for a denial.

Another member of the plaintiffs' legal team, Roman Storzer, said most of the rabbinical students would be from the Hasidic Orthodox sects, though the college would be open to all Orthodox students. He said the Hasidic community needs the college because the rabbis who go through its 15-year training program would address a "dire" shortage of judges for religious courts that resolve issues including marriage, divorce, burial and conversion.

The teachers, the students and the people who use the judges would be engaging in religious activity, he said.

"We need to stop the Village of Pomona, and municipalities across the country, from using their zoning power as a tool to control unpopular religious groups," Storzer said.

Another plaintiffs' attorney, John Stepanovich, said his clients are seeking to exercise their religious rights.

"They want to be good neighbors, but they're not too concerned that their neighbors won't like them or don't like them," he said.

The Religious Land Use Act has been used in at least three other lawsuits in the region, supporting a Jewish school's new building in Mamaroneck, a Hasidic boarding school in Airmont and a residence in Suffern that would allow Orthodox Jews to visit a hospital on the Sabbath without breaking their law against driving. Decisions favoring the two schools are being appealed, and the Suffern case has not gone to court.

Fast Growth in Hasidic Enclave

(Kiryas Joel, N.Y.) AP - Kiryas Joel is on a growth spurt.

The Orthodox Jewish enclave in Orange County grew faster than any other community in New York state from 2000 through 2006. That's according to an analysis of new census data by The New York Times.

Kiryas Joel grew by 51 percent to 20,000 residents over the six years.

The village was incorporated in 1977 as an offshoot of the Satmar Hasidic sect in Brooklyn. Birth control is banned among the sect and women tend to marry young and stay in the village.

As Hasidic population grows, Jewish politics may shift right

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In an era when the Jewish population in America is stable or declining, ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish numbers are growing rapidly — a trend that may make the Jewish community not only more religiously observant but also more politically conservative.

So says a University of Florida population geographer who recently completed the first estimate of the Hasidic population based on the U.S. Census.

Geography professor Joshua Comenetz estimated today’s Hasidic population at about 180,000, just 3 percent of the approximately 6 million Jews in the U.S., in a recent paper published in the journal Contemporary Jewry. However, Comenetz calculated that the Hasidic population doubles every 20 years because Hasidic Jews tend to have many children. That’s occurring even as demographic studies show that the non-Orthodox Jewish population is flat or falling. If current trends continue, Hasidic and other growing ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups will constitute a majority of U.S. Jews in the second half of this century – a potentially profound cultural and political change.

“In demographic terms, Hasidic Jews are more similar to some highly religious Christian groups than liberal Jews,” Comenetz said. “They may also sympathize more with the Republicans than the Democrats on values questions. So, one outcome may be a change in the way Jews vote.”

This bodes a turn toward conservatism among American Jews, most of whom traditionally support the Democratic Party, Comenetz added. For example, most ultra-Orthodox Jews send their children to religious schools, which makes they more sympathetic to faith-based initiatives of the sort identified with the Republican Party.

Hasidic, which means “pious” in Hebrew, refers to a Jewish movement that believes in a strict interpretation of the laws and ethics of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Hasidic Jews frown on contraception, abortion and divorce, although they do not absolutely ban them. Hasidic Jews also tend to have large, traditional families, with most Hasidic women working in the home, although Hasidic women are not forbidden from entering the workplace.

Comenetz is not the first to try to estimate the national Hasidic population, which is centered in the New York area. But his estimate is the only one based on U.S. Census data, and the most recent data at that — the 2000 U.S. Census. The Census might seem an unlikely source of information for such research because it does not ask questions about people’s religious affiliation. In effect since the first Census in 1790, that policy is rooted in the constitutional separation of church and state.

What made Comenetz’s research possible was a question the Census does ask: “What language do you speak at home?” Hasidic Jews are rare among immigrant groups in that they continue to speak the native tongue of their Eastern European forebears today, many generations after their ancestors first came to America. That language is Yiddish.

Comenetz’s effort was more complicated than simply summing all Census-counted Yiddish speakers, however. That’s because not all Hasidic Jews speak Yiddish. And many elderly non-Hasidic Jews who immigrated to America from Eastern Europe through the post-World War II era also speak Yiddish. This population complicated the picture enough for Comenetz to find a way to isolate them from Hasidic Jews.

He did that by using other Census questions about age to narrow his focus to Yiddish-speaking children, counting about 40,000 between ages 5 and 17, most in metropolitan New York. Other information about Hasidic family structure allowed Comenetz to extrapolate the 40,000 children to 140,000 total Hasidic Jews.

That was in 2000, and Comenetz estimates the number has grown to 180,000 in 2006. There are about the same number of ultra-Orthodox Jews who are not Hasidic. Unlike many Christian groups, such as Mormons, most Jews including the ultra-Orthodox do not seek converts, so the growth of their population is almost entirely due to births. It is not at all unusual for ultra-Orthodox families to have four, six or more children, Comenetz said.

In New York, the effects of the growth of the Hasidic population are already apparent, with Hasidic people leaving their traditional neighborhoods in Brooklyn to set up communities in rural suburbs. Hasidic Jews believe in living close together, within walking distance of a synagogue, so these settlements tend consist of closely spaced apartments or rowhouses – a far cry from the big-house, big-lawn American suburban archetype. As the population grows, New York can expect to see more such unique settlements, Comenetz said. “They do the opposite of suburban sprawl,” he said.

As Hasidic population grows, Jewish politics may shift right

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In an era when the Jewish population in America is stable or declining, ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish numbers are growing rapidly — a trend that may make the Jewish community not only more religiously observant but also more politically conservative.

So says a University of Florida population geographer who recently completed the first estimate of the Hasidic population based on the U.S. Census.

Geography professor Joshua Comenetz estimated today’s Hasidic population at about 180,000, just 3 percent of the approximately 6 million Jews in the U.S., in a recent paper published in the journal Contemporary Jewry. However, Comenetz calculated that the Hasidic population doubles every 20 years because Hasidic Jews tend to have many children. That’s occurring even as demographic studies show that the non-Orthodox Jewish population is flat or falling. If current trends continue, Hasidic and other growing ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups will constitute a majority of U.S. Jews in the second half of this century – a potentially profound cultural and political change.

“In demographic terms, Hasidic Jews are more similar to some highly religious Christian groups than liberal Jews,” Comenetz said. “They may also sympathize more with the Republicans than the Democrats on values questions. So, one outcome may be a change in the way Jews vote.”

This bodes a turn toward conservatism among American Jews, most of whom traditionally support the Democratic Party, Comenetz added. For example, most ultra-Orthodox Jews send their children to religious schools, which makes they more sympathetic to faith-based initiatives of the sort identified with the Republican Party.

Hasidic, which means “pious” in Hebrew, refers to a Jewish movement that believes in a strict interpretation of the laws and ethics of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Hasidic Jews frown on contraception, abortion and divorce, although they do not absolutely ban them. Hasidic Jews also tend to have large, traditional families, with most Hasidic women working in the home, although Hasidic women are not forbidden from entering the workplace.

Comenetz is not the first to try to estimate the national Hasidic population, which is centered in the New York area. But his estimate is the only one based on U.S. Census data, and the most recent data at that — the 2000 U.S. Census. The Census might seem an unlikely source of information for such research because it does not ask questions about people’s religious affiliation. In effect since the first Census in 1790, that policy is rooted in the constitutional separation of church and state.

What made Comenetz’s research possible was a question the Census does ask: “What language do you speak at home?” Hasidic Jews are rare among immigrant groups in that they continue to speak the native tongue of their Eastern European forebears today, many generations after their ancestors first came to America. That language is Yiddish.

Comenetz’s effort was more complicated than simply summing all Census-counted Yiddish speakers, however. That’s because not all Hasidic Jews speak Yiddish. And many elderly non-Hasidic Jews who immigrated to America from Eastern Europe through the post-World War II era also speak Yiddish. This population complicated the picture enough for Comenetz to find a way to isolate them from Hasidic Jews.

He did that by using other Census questions about age to narrow his focus to Yiddish-speaking children, counting about 40,000 between ages 5 and 17, most in metropolitan New York. Other information about Hasidic family structure allowed Comenetz to extrapolate the 40,000 children to 140,000 total Hasidic Jews.

That was in 2000, and Comenetz estimates the number has grown to 180,000 in 2006. There are about the same number of ultra-Orthodox Jews who are not Hasidic. Unlike many Christian groups, such as Mormons, most Jews including the ultra-Orthodox do not seek converts, so the growth of their population is almost entirely due to births. It is not at all unusual for ultra-Orthodox families to have four, six or more children, Comenetz said.

In New York, the effects of the growth of the Hasidic population are already apparent, with Hasidic people leaving their traditional neighborhoods in Brooklyn to set up communities in rural suburbs. Hasidic Jews believe in living close together, within walking distance of a synagogue, so these settlements tend consist of closely spaced apartments or rowhouses – a far cry from the big-house, big-lawn American suburban archetype. As the population grows, New York can expect to see more such unique settlements, Comenetz said. “They do the opposite of suburban sprawl,” he said.

Commemoration of the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires

Reuters - Wed Jul 18, 5:59 PM ET

A member of the Argentine Jewish community prays during the commemoration of the 13th anniversary of the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, July 18, 2007. The banner reads "Justice." REUTERS/Santiago Pandolfi (ARGENTINA)

Reuters - Wed Jul 18, 4:44 PM ET

Members of the Argentine Jewish community attend the commemoration of the 13th anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires July 18, 2007. REUTERS/Santiago Pandolfi (ARGENTINA)