Lakewood NJ

Hasidic Jews standing on a wall amongst trees as they try to see the burial of Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, April 25, 2006, in Kiryas Joel, New York. (Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)

By Carolyn Yeager

First 'Jewish town' in USA

OFFICIAL JEWISH TOWNS, JUST LIKE THE JEWISH STATE OF ISRAEL, are coming to the United States of America. It's being done by settlement building, just like in Palestine, and seccession. From the Jewish Telegraph Agency:

The Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel reportedly will become the first haredi Orthodox town in the United States after voters in Monroe, New York, overwhelmingly backed a referendum on secession.

On Tuesday, over 80 percent of Monroe voters backed the measure on Kiryas Joel, a village of over 20,000 Yiddish-speaking Jews associated with the Satmar Hasidic sect, to form the state’s first new town in 35 years. The Town of Palm Tree — an English translation of the Satmar rebbe’s surname, Teitelbaum — should come into existence in 2020, unless lawmakers speed up the process.

Yeshiva students fill the sidewalk as they walk toward another day of Torah/Talmud study in Lakewood, New Jersey. Credit Laura Pedrick for The New York Times

By Carolyn Yeager

“What we require is simple: that we control everything necessary for our own good.” … the Jewish philosopher Spinoza

In 2013, Tablet, a daily online magazine of Jewish news and culture, published an article in praise and recognition of the rapidly expanding Orthdox community in Lakewood, New Jersey. Written by David Landes (naturally a Jew) from a Jewish point of view that growth is good, there was no mention of the dissatisfaction and displacement of the established Goy population of Lakewood. The thrust of the article is 'What is good for the Jews is good', period. The only criticism mentioned was coming from “the more hardline Israeli Haredis” who have an even more “uncompromising stance” toward the larger society in which they live.