As the Orthodox Jewish community continues to experience exponential growth across the region, natural expansion has become necessary for both seasonal and year-round living needs. Unfortunately, religious Jews have been subject to discrimination from many towns and cities that have placed arbitrary roadblocks in the form of restrictive zoning ordinances designed to prevent them from pursuing opportunities available to other communities. Areas like Jackson and Toms River in New Jersey as well as Airmont, Chestnut Ridge, Chester, and Blooming Grove in New York are just some of the municipalities that created various types of artificial impediments and obstructive ‘rules.’ Though costly and time consuming, in every one of those cases, Agudath Israel and local communities successfully fought back against these nefarious efforts. The latest front is now Forestburgh, NY, in upstate Sullivan County. Several years ago, a company based out of Texas received “shovel ready” approval to build a resort village consisting of over two thousand homes in the town. However, when the Texas company sold the development to a Chassidic group, all the approvals were suddenly pulled, and additional ‘legal requirements’ were enacted. This included, among others, a new zoning ordinance requiring an eye-popping 5 acres for a house of worship anywhere in the entire town (while a theater requires only 1.5 acres in the commercial district). To many observers, these new requirements are a blatant and illegal action clearly designed to prevent religious Jews from living in Forestburgh. This past Thursday evening, veteran Agudah Askan, Chaskel Bennett, testified at a contentious Forestburgh Town Board meeting and expressed his vehement opposition to this new proposed zoning law which still demands 5 acres in all residential districts of Forestburgh. “In my travels visiting countless synagogues across this county… —nowhere have I seen a five acre demand for a house of worship. This restrictive requirement, therefore, appears to me and to many others, not as a measure of genuine need or good government, but meant to act as a barrier that blocks religious Jews from living in any part of Forestburgh. Religious worship is an essential part of our lives, and it has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as protected under the First Amendment,”…”At a time of alarming and unprecedented anti semitism, many observers watching this unfortunate situation in Forestburg can only conclude that the law being weaponized to discriminate against a community that has faced this kind of government sanctioned discrimination before. We know discrimination when we see it.” Bennett thundered. Agudah representatives Rabbis’ Avi Schnall, Yeruchim Silber, and Shragi Greenbaum as well as Abe Rutner, board member of the Sullivan County JCC have testified before this same board. Rabbi Silber, Aguda’s Director of NYS Government Relations, commented, “Agudah has a long-time track record of fighting for the rights of every orthodox Jew to live and raise their families in any locale of their choosing. Like other cases of government sponsored discrimination, we have been involved with the Forestburg situation almost from the beginning. This is a continuation of a lengthy fight for fairness and equity that sadly needs to be waged.” In addition to a lawsuit against the town by the developer that is currently pending, the U.S. Justice Department submitted a statement of interest in the case, and the NYS Attorney General wrote to the town […]