Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 March 1961 — Page 5

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Hasiife Community Battles Township for Incorporation as Village

Square Town Youngsters These two youngsters are residents of the Utopian Hassidic Community near Spring Valley, N. Y. Their Yarmulka caps and long side curls are symbols of the Orthodox nature of the community.

Traveling Synagogue The New Square bus pictured above transports residents of the strictly Orthodox community of New Square to Williamsburg, a distance of 40 miles. En route religious services are held in the mobile Synagogue with the men and women separated by a curtain. Women may not wear slacks. Their heads must be covered by a shawl.

£y RACHEL A. RABINOWICZ NEW YORK (P-O)—Currently reaching a climax is the struggle of the ultra-Orthodox Hassidim of New Square, a 130-acre, 69house settlement near Spring Valley, to build a self-contained Torah-centered community for themselves and for fellow Hassidim waiting to join them in

Williamsburg.

They seek incorporation as a village to enable them to go ahead with building plans. These plans are obstructed by the Ramapo township which now refuses to issue building permits and opposes incorporation (which would free New Square from the restrictions of the Town’s building and zoning ordinances). Is this a case of religious discrimination? Is incorporation opposed because of the specifically Jewish character of the proposed village? Is the Town afraid that this will detract form the status (and rateable value) of the locality? Are private rather than public interests involved? Do neighborhood Jews fear that the emergence of what some have called “a modern Ghetto" will reflect upon them? THE REAL issues on either side have been obscured by a meshwork of legalistic quibbles, a welter pf claims, counterclaims, legal suits, counter suits, accusations, innuendoes and denials. A dozen axes are being ground simultaneously. Now Ramapo Township has issued a Suit of Condemnation (an earlier suit, eight months old, is still pending) against New Square's sewer system, pumping station and streets. On the other hand. New Square has gone to State Supreme Court to compel the town to forward its petition for incorporation to Albany. The Town alleges that the upkeep of roads and sewers is unsatisfactory and demands possession of the deeds before permitting the incorporation petition to go through. New Square has affidavits to certify that roads and sewers are in excellent condition. Moreover, there are bitter protests at this form of

NEW YORK (P-O) — The fur industry is far from being without Jews and the mink coat is still vying with the wall-to-wali carpet for supremacy in the eyes of the Jewish housewife. Nevertheless, the Jewish homeland developed little of the industry of status and warmth dUc to cliinatic and ideological reasons — that is until Herman Meltzer came along. Meltzer, a top U. S. fur executive, has just returned from Israel where he conducted a survey preliminary to the inauguration of a full scale development of the Israeli fur industry. Toward this end, Meltzer laid down a three-point program which calls for (A) Establishment of a mink breeding industry with the possibility of Persian lamb breeding to follow and the dispatch of 500 fine American breeding mink to Israel in April; (B) Creation of a special “fur village" in an undeveloped area in Israel to help train unskilled help for the production of pieced mink and Persian paw “plates.'' (C) Inauguration of a Fur Institute and a Fur Bureau of

“hand over the deeds and then we’ll see about the incorporation” bargaining. ‘T don’t think one thing has anything to do with the other,” comments New Square attorney. Mo Mendelsohn. “I have searched the laws thoroughly, and it has no legal bearing at all upon the incorporation. The question of the deeds has to do with the builders and the question of the incorporation has to do with the residents, whom I represent. Why should the residents be penal-

ized?”

IN REPLY, Town officials cite a string of some thirty building and zoning violations, difficulties “financial and otherwise,” poor maintenance,” and “a garbage problem.” “They are very good at their religion but they are not constructionists or sanitation experts,” is the gist of these com-

plaints.

New Square accuses the town of repeatedly breaking its promises, of imposing unnecessary restrictions, of showing far more leniency to nearby developments. Charges of “poor maintenance” are resented and refuted. “I tell you when spring comes and the grass is all up, landscaped at the cost of thousands of dollars, it is really beautiful,” enthuses New York attorney for New Square, David L. Pell. “The houses are kept in a good state of repair. But opponents pick or. times like Succoth, when the Hassidim put up booths for a few days, and cry, ‘Look, they’re building shacksl’ ” It is the New Square contention that these criticisms are a cover-up for anti-Semitism on the part of the town board, an accusation strongly denied by Ramapo officials. TOWN Superisor Edwin E. Wallace, who allegedly told a New York Herald Tribune reporter, “I wish they would go back to Brooklyn,” was vacationing in Miami, not available for comment. According to colleagues, he is a frequent speakei at Yeshiva banquets. “It is a procedure of fact, more a matter for attorneys than anything else,” maintains board

Standards to control quality of all furs and fur products under semi-governmental authority. The Israeli Fur Trading Corporation is being formed, Meltzer said, to supply Israel with broadtail and Persian skins and other furs primarily for export and the tourist market. Various advisory boards made up of world fur experts and specialists in marketing and finance have been appointedJHH To aid in starting the mink breeding industry in Israel, Meltzer has enlisted the support of two of the top breeders in America — Otto Grosse of Cary, HI., owner of one of the world's largest fur ranches and Alex Weinig of New York, a manufacturer and a leading rancher as well. “Israel should be raising some of the finest mink in the world in four or five years,” said Meltzer. “This will of course pose no threat to the American mink industry. In fact, it will probably lead to export of more mink to Israel because it seems certain that tourist trade and European and African sales of f i n i s h e d goods will increase substantially once breeding gets under way.”

member Thomas F. O’Brien. "Religion has never been an issue with us. This is America. Let’s hope and pray to God we always have religion.” ‘Tfs been a mess,” says councilman R. Warren MacGrath. “We’ve gone out of our way to be kind to them but they, haven’t been cooperative. That's the thing that’s a bit annoying.” FEELINGS run high in N e w Square which is virtually fighting for its survival (“this is a matter of life importance to us”) and resentment is concentrated upon David Moses, town attorney, and key figure in the antiincorporation moves. Mr. Moses, himself a Jew, declares that there is no anti-Semit-ism involved, “otherwise I would

say so.”

But it appears that opposition in Rockland County is more likely to come from Jews than nonJews. “Some of our Jewish people don’t like it,” explains John Sengstacken, building and zoning inspector. “They don’t think it's a good idea, this segregation. Many rabbis who have supported, incorporation have been criticized by their congregants. Everyone's badly mixed up.” “It’s not true that public opinion is against us,” declares Louis Mermelstein, New. Square spokesman. “Decent people around here support us. But many people have never seen a community like this. They think someone with a beard must be a wild man. We have proved that we are as decent, if not more decent, than anyone else. We have the best police record in any country. We have never needed assistance from the police. Those who came a little nearer to us respect us today.” THE ATTITUDE of the Jewish antagonists is summed up succinctly by Simon Glass, a Brooklyn-born Jew now living in New York City. “When Orthodox Jews get together they often form slums, ghettoes. It’s not good for the rest of us.” Last week Mr. Glass sent the Ramapo board an assurance that it was “1,000 per cent right” in its stand and that the newcomers would create “a filthy Ghetto.” “Don’t get me wrong, I'm not an anti-Semite or a Jew-hater,” explained Mr. Glass to The POST and OPINION. “I was just trying to do a little good as far as moral encouragement is concerned. I like to see right done and I'm always on the side of the under-dog.” According to David Moses, the worst enemies of the Jews are

— Jews.

Have the “anti-Semitic” Jews any grounds for imputing “unAmerican” conduct to the Hassidim? Apparently, these indictments are unfounded. “UN-AMERICAN? Un-civic-minded? I have never found them that way,” says Mayor John Balogh. “I think it is wrong to imply such a thing. They are normal, decent citizens.” “They are very quiet. No one even knows that they are there,” confirms John Sengstacken. And community leaders agree that as v citizens, the New Square residents are above reproach. But the Hassidim are certainly under pressure from all sides. And most pressing of all is the urgent need to provide for fel-low-Hassidim who are living in difficult conditions in Williamsburg and who are desperate to find decent homes where their children can lead a traditional Torah-true life, untainted by tel-

evision, undisturbed by the alien influences, the conflicts and insecurities of the city. There are 350 youngsters to New Square’s 175 adults, but juvenile delinquency simply does not exist. “THERE IS NO other place in the world,” declares Louis Mermelstein passionately, “where people have the chance that we have here, to live as 100 per cent Jews and as 100 per cent human. Look around, it’s a children’s paradise. If we had the support, it could be a Kiddush Ha-Shem, a pride for American Jewry, for the United States and for the whole world.” In 1954, the Hassidim, seeking

a semi-rural area where they could live undisturbed, bought the vacant dairy pasture of Harold Harms and began construction of their village two years later. The original sub-division was for 151 homes but only 69 were built The first families moved in fourteen months lat^r. The congregation built the roads (valued at $175,000) and the sewer system (worth $200000) with its own money and began building a synagogue. Televion is banned in the community but nearly every home has a radio and two stoves and tvwj sinks (one forjnilk products and one for meat in keeping with a prohibition not to mix the two).

U. S. Expert to Aid Growth Of Fur Industry in Israel