Hate Group Wants To Turn Washingtonville School District Into Next East Ramapo
The United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, aka the local hate group, is asking its followers to vote down the upcoming Washingtonville Central School District Budget on Tuesday,
This weekend marks the 70th anniversary of the Brown V. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Back when the Supreme Court was a (temporarily) functional organization, they ruled that “separate but equal” education in America was unconstitutional.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — and potential future Speaker of the House if the Democrats take back control of Congress this Fall — said in a statement to The Hill:
“We’ve come a long way since the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional” […] “But today, the most segregated school systems in America can be directly traced to policies put in place in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education.” (Source) (Emphasis Added.)
This was an interesting comment coming from Jeffries, given that in 2023, he had a sit down meeting with hanhallah — Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum and company — the nature of which he has never provided the details of. That meeting is pictured above.
According to the Yiddish language magazine, Hakiryah, Hanhallah asked Congressman Pat Ryan (already deep in their pocket) and House Minority Leader Jeffries for their assistance in limiting state intervention concerning the (total lack) of secular education provided to students attending haredi yeshivas.
(Shout out to our friends at Yaffed for fighting the good fight to make sure haredi children are granted the same quality education everyone else receives.)
Whether or not Hakeem Jeffries asked Teitelbaum about the situation in East Ramapo — which has caused de facto segregation to be alive and well 70 years after the passage of Brown v. Board of Education, mostly through the same policies mentioned by Jeffries in his statement to The Hill — is unknown.
Whether or not Mr. Jeffries also asked for the Rebbe and his machers to help intervene, and find a solution that is beneficial to all children of East Ramapo is also unknown.
But here are somethings we do know:
“East Ramapo” is often used as a threat by bad actors in the haredi community to get what they want from local governments in Orange, Rockland, and Sullivan County.
Segregation is alive and well in Rockland County, and thus far, the State has not acted to end it.
The United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove (acting on orders from hanhallah) are now looking to turn Washingtonville Central School District into the next East Ramapo.
A Word On Supporting Your Local School District
Above: Charter schools and private schools are often used as fronts to further someone’s political and religious point of view and/or fatten the wallets of the people who run them.
On Tuesday, May 21st, voters in the Washingtonville Central School District will get to vote on next year’s proposed budget between 6am and 9pm at the High School (54 W Main St, Washingtonville, NY 10992.)
Likewise, voters in Monroe-Woodbury will also have that opportunity between 6am and 9pm at Central Valley Elementary School (45 NY-32, Central Valley, NY 10917.)
If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re intelligent enough to vote yes on both school budgets.
Public schools are a public good, and every child is entitled to the best possible education we can give them.
Does that mean the budgeting process is perfect? No.
Is there a better way to fund public schools than taxes? Yes. Probably! And we should fight for an increase in federal aid to help reduce our already high tax load here in New York.
But at the same time, the people who usually complain about the budget haven’t attended a school board meeting (or watched the videos online), raised their concerns at meetings, or (in most cases) are just unhappy about higher taxes.
I hear you on that last point.
Life in America is brutally expensive.
But I’ll also remind you that, as Americans, what we’re really experiencing is an affordability crisis, and not a tax crisis.
And the way to fix that isn’t to punish the school districts and children, it’s to join a union and vote out corrupt politicians — like Congressman Pat Ryan — who work for the corporations and the extremely wealthy. If you don’t, they’ll keep price gouging us and use inflation as excuse to do so.
And, of course, there’s another reason to support your local school district’s budget request: Because hanhallah and their machers want to vote down the budget at every opportunity.
You can see the latest attempt right here, with an email sent out by the United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove.
Stern, Ekstein, Want To Defund Washingtonville
Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, founder and president of the local hate group respectively, are also defacto co-mayors of South Blooming Grove. And not only are they the two plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Washingtonville School District, they also serve as liaisons to the school district in their capacity as Village of South Blooming Grove employees.
If any of you can explain to me how that logically works, I’d love to hear your answer.
Not surprisingly, the local hate group is asking their supporters not to vote for the school district’s budget on Tuesday.
I’m going to spare you the bullshit included in the newsletter because it needs to be fact checked. The UJC newsletter often contains disinformation, and that stuff can’t be shared unless someone checks it out first, and debunks it if needed.
What I will share with you is the last few lines from this week’s email.
That’s because those words from Mr. Ekstein and Mr. Stern should be deeply disturbing for all parents in the Washingtonville School District. They will also, if you live in Rockland County, sound very familiar:
“All this comes after our fellow Israelis, the residents of our city, have a large surplus in the coffers of the school district when the community pays taxes and does not use most of their services, except for transportation.”
So, a quick fact check:
-Although it’s called United Jewish Community of South Blooming Grove, and Mr. Stern has made statements before saying the organization represents the Jewish community in South Blooming Grove, that’s simply not true. It only represents the Satmar. Above, you can see them furthering the illusion of representing all my fellow Jews, which they do not do.
-South Blooming Grove is not a city. It is not part of Kiryas Joel, despite this organization’s best efforts and hanhallah’s official media publications referring to to it as such.
-There is no surplus created by the haredi’s lack of use of the school district. They are referencing here the money in the school district’s reserve fund. The reserve fund is for scheduled, routine, and unscheduled expenses that would otherwise come out of the school’s general fund. Put simply, if you’re a taxpayer, the reserve fund is your last line of defense before the school district needs to increase taxes to cover its expenses.
So, to be clear: The Reserve Fund is not a surplus. It may even need to be used to help pay for the fight against the UJC’s lawsuit.
-”When the community pays taxes and does not use most of their services, except for transportation.”
That “except” is doing some heavy lifting.
Because the transportation is a massive cost to everyone (and, honestly, if you want to send your kids to a non-public school, that’s your right to do so, but we don’t have to pay for it.
I’m happy to pay for public schools because it’s accessible to everyone. I’m not happy paying for private school busing, especially when those schools blatantly refuse to provide the same kind of quality education the children would receive at a public school. That’s not something you or I should have to fund. Especially given stories like this concerning the lack of transparency with hanhallah’s yeshivas.)
Busing kids to non-public schools is expensive.
As Jay Worona, of the New York State School Boards Association told the court, in a filing in support of Washingtonville Central School District against the local hate group:
Some school districts contract out the transportation of their students, while others transport children on their own. Unlike in New York City, most do not have a massive public transportation system that they can tap into for the transportation of students. Therefore, they will need to expand their contracts with private school transportation companies to transport nonpublic school students on days when public schools are closed. For districts who transport students themselves, there will be labor and financial issues associated with work assignments during periods when staff would normally have time off. Those issues will need to be resolved through collective negotiations and that will undoubtedly involve additional remuneration costs, as well as other bargaining issues related, for example, to the possibility of subcontracting work as an alternative solution which would still have costly monetary implications. (Source)
This isn’t the first time Stern and Ekstein have put out disinformation about the alleged lack of impact the haredi community has had on the school district.
It won’t be the last.
So when you see it, it’s important to fact check it and say something.
Because if Stern and Ekstein are successful, between their lawsuit against Washingtonville and their attempts to defeat the school budget, you’re going to soon find yourself with another East Ramapo in the not too distant future.