Sort of a different issue, but full disclosure compels me to bring it up.
Seems like up here in NY State the Hasidic (Ultra-Orthodox) Jews are considered a bane by many, for practical reasons. Case in point; the village of Bloomberg NY in Orange County where some of my immediate kin live.
Maybe six years back a Hasidic group bought 500 acres from a local for a few million dollars, defaulted on the mortgage payments and then declared bankruptcy before the previous owner could foreclose. The latest proposal from this group in this carefully-zoned region is an application to build 550 housing units for a Hasidic community on this property (worth noting that a few years back the residents of this county just an hour's drive from NYC voted in an protective ordinance requiring six acres per new housing unit).
I am told that as a group the Hasidic Jews here are notorious for paying no taxes and drawing on public assistance while ruthlessly impinging upon the water resources of their neighbors. They do apparently work the legal system very well.
Its bad enough that the Village of Bloomberg is now looking to dissolve itself as a separate entity so as to merge with a larger, neighboring township which has deeper legal pockets.
Worth noting that this isn't properly a "Jewish" issue per se, the regular Jewish folks in the area are outraged and alarmed too.
But, if'n it were Shiite Moslems or similar doing this it would be all over the papers.
Birdwatcher
