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Ramapo nears breaking point

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Front Page of The Journal News Sunday Jan. 8, 2017

On Sunday, The Journal News devoted its entire front section to an examination of the accelerating, crushing growth in the Town of Ramapo. The cautionary lead on the front page was followed by six feature articles in section one, all dealing with the growing crisis in a town with uncontrolled development, a collapsing tax base, and top-level administrators busy working on their legal defenses against scores of federal charges. The dry rot resulting from endemic political corruption threatens the entire community.

The six features in section one are divided by six separate themes:

“It’s Ramapo’s lack of zoning and safety code enforcement, not religion, that has encouraged development chaos and divided the town. [Read more…]

Appeals Court: Ramapo Yeshiva Provided no Proof of Bias

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A Ramapo yeshiva that had accused several villages of anti-Hasidic bias never provided any evidence to support its accusations, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in dismissing its civil rights lawsuit.
The latest decision will likely end the yeshiva’s long legal fight against Pomona, Chestnut Ridge, Wesley Hills and Montebello and their officials, according to attorney Greg Saracino, representing Pomona. “I don’t expect the yeshiva to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, as there are no novel constitutional issues at play,” Saracino said Wednesday. “It’s a clean ruling with no dissent. Simply, the plaintiffs failed to come forward with any evidence of discrimination from the villages. The case was entirely based on innuendo and opinion.”  The yeshiva accused the communities of incorporating as villages to curtail the expansion of Hasidic neighborhoods through restrictive zoning. It also claimed the villages tried to hide behind environmental laws in an attempt to block the construction of housing and a study center on Grandview Avenue — a use allowed under the town of Ramapo’s adult student housing zone. Read the complete Journal News story here.

JN Editorial: Room for all in Ramapo?

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  • Female FBI Agent

    Photo: John Meore/ Journal News

    “Last week brought another FBI raid in town, with another round of accusations that federal monies had been misappropriated by those affiliated with the Orthodox Jewish community. Ongoing tension over zoning regulations, or lack thereof, builds. The distrust continues in the East Ramapo school district, where years of mismanagement by an Orthodox-dominated board have brought efforts to install a state monitor to provide oversight. Tensions have run high in town for a while now, and it’s only getting worse. Some leaders in the Orthodox community cite East Ramapo critics as spewing anti-Semitism; some town residents find instances of probes, like Wednesday’s raids, as proof of rampant corruption among all people of a certain group. Neither passes the smell test. [Read more…]

Anti-Semitism: A Label too often Uses as a Shield to Fight Off Scrutiny

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Published Online on the Rockland Voice
By Julie D. Globus  Child of Cultural Yiddishkeit, an Attorney, an Advocate and a Mother

This letter addresses comments made by Legislator Wieder in a speech made to the Rockland County Legislature, as well as comments that followed a letter written by Assemblyman Hikind to the Attorney General. This letter seeks to establish a format whereby one can criticize the activities of a community without being labeled an anti-Semite, a self-hating Jew or defamatory. This letter hopes to give people currently silenced by the shield of being labeled an anti-Semite, a voice. [Read more…]