"In The Name Of God We Will Succeed"
Meet The Blooming Grove Report, an official newsletter from the Village of South Blooming Grove, provided exclusively online for Yiddish speaking residents.
If a governing body wants to put out stuff in multiple languages? I think that’s great.
We are a large, beautifully diverse country, and not everyone speaks English.
So, if a governing body wants to put out stuff in Yiddish? That’s awesome.
Listen, we are a little less than a hundred years since the Nazis sent much of my Grandmother’s family to a death camp. (The rest of my family escaped Russia at various points in the late 19th and early 20th century due to antisemitism.)
The fact that Yiddish, the language that the Cook family spoke back in Galicia — What’s now parts of Western Ukraine and South Eastern Poland — is being used at all in the 21st Century is cool to see. My grandmother, if she were alive today, would be proud.
But you know what she wouldn’t like?
When a governing body puts out, as part of its official communications, stuff that says “The Village government is working on all fronts for prayer and war, on the political and legal fronts, with the help of God, God bless him […] that the permits be given to the project.”
Quick. Guess what that project is in reference to.
You’ll never guess.
Not in a million years.
Oh. … You did?
Yes. The official Yiddish language newsletter of the Village of South Blooming Grove, known as The Blooming Grove Report, said this exact thing about Clovewood.
So today, we’re going to take a look at one issue of The Blooming Grove Report, and how Mr. Joel Stern and Mr. Isaac Ekstein, and friends, are using an official government newsletter to advocate for a project that is in their financial interests to complete.
Thanks to a whistleblower in the Satmar community, I was tipped off to the existence of The Blooming Grove Report (BGR).
In many instances, the BGR echoes announcements made by the Village of Blooming Grove that were made in English. There’s a water main broken. Traffic on 208 is expected to be bad because of construction. Look out for that snowstorm! Stuff like that.
And like I said, there’s not a thing wrong with that. Southern Orange County has many residents who don’t speak English as a first language, and it’s important that they know what’s going on in their community.
But the BGR also does a lot of editorializing. If this was an independent newsletter, that’d be totally fine. But this is an official communication by the Village of South Blooming Grove. And as you know if you’re reading The Monroe Gazette, not everyone in South Blooming Grove speaks Yiddish.
And I’m willing to bet, most of them were not even aware of the BGR until they read this story.
So now you have the village government, funded by your tax dollars, advocating for projects that many of residents are distinctly opposed to, all while praising God in the process.
I don’t know about you, but I’d start calling every first amendment lawyer around and see who wants a slam dunk case of a village government violating the establishment clause.
Actually, if I live in South Blooming Grove, I’d be talking to all my neighbors about filing a class action lawsuit against Mr. Stern, Mr. Ekstein, Jacob Gold, Zigmond Brach, and Keen Equities. They got deep pockets, and it’s clear DA Hoovler and AG James won’t do anything to help you. So, there’s no other peaceful recourse other than to sue the shit out these guys.
I hope some of you reading this take that action. I can’t do it because I don’t live in Blooming Grove and therefore haven’t been directly harmed by their actions yet. I can only sue if I send in a FOIL request, and they don’t respond, which looks like something that could happen soon, but y’all need to act now.
(Actually, I’ve been told any resident can file a first amendment establishment clause case. So … I’m game to do that.)
What Does This BGR Issue Say?
Page 1
They’re blaming an agency (it’s not clear who) for not giving the village water supply and sewage permits for Dvri Haim. Dvri Haim is how the Clovewood neighborhood is referred to in a lot of issues of the BGR that I’ve reviewed in working on this story.
The spelling sometimes differs. What’s relevant to note here is that the Rebbe(s) rename streets and neighborhoods to give them names that reflect the insular version of Judaism that they want to protect.
So an anglo name like Clovewood isn’t what it’s actually called in the community. This presents another problem. Because now you have an official government communication referring to streets and neighborhoods by names that are unfamiliar, and not agreed upon, by the other residents who aren’t Haredi.
They (and by they, I mean the Village of South Blooming Grove) are said to be working to increase the village’s water supply by digging wells and accessing wells on private property.
Page 2
This was interesting because it says the Village is working on a way to take over all the “water-blessed springs” that are located on the Dabri Haim development, “as there is a common understanding and negotiation with the developers to hand over the springs to the Village, which will of course bring unprecedented abundance of water to the entire village, god bless you.”
Remember: De Facto South Blooming Grove Mayor Joel Stern is the Chief Operating Officer of Windsor Global. Jacob Gold, one of the Keen Equities investor, is the President of Windsor Global. Y.C. Rubin is the manager for Keen Equities and a Windsor Global employee. So “a common understanding and negotiation” here could basically mean what it actually is: Collusion.
Here, there is an explicit call out to the opposition of Clovewood. “The project is very successful, and as everyone knows, the neighborhood of Dabri Haim was subjected to countless machinations throughout the years and dragged by the authorities at every opportunity until the village was taken over by the local administration which had considerable [sic] advanced the project.”
In many issues of the BGR, they constantly bash the previous South Blooming Grove board, implying that the water crisis is their fault, and not the fault of the current administration. This is half-true. The previous administration did nothing. The current administratiton, authoring this newsletter, has made the water situation far, far worse.
By “countless machinations” what they’re really saying is all those pesky DEC violations and the creation of South Blooming Grove in 2006, which you’ll remember, Jacob Gold and the developers tried to dissolve unsuccessfully in court.
Page 3
The translation is a little murky, but what I gathered is pretty important. They (The Village of South Blooming Grove) expect the DEC to approve the permit requests. Then, The BGR says they can “finally start laying the water lines at the wells.”
They mention that the developers “can start pouring funds into the AZHIS and STOMTS” but I don’t know what that is. It could also be a translation error, but it’s clear that the Village is working hand in hand with Keen Equities, which you’ll remember, owns almost a thousand acres, if not more, of the VIllage.
Next on this page, the Village complains about how long it’s taken for the DEC to give Keen Equities the permit.
Page 4
This page explicitly thanks residents who wrote to the DEC with positive messages about Clovewood “so that the project can move forward.”
They then call out “the incredible number of letters came in [sic] most of the letters coming from elements and groups that do not live in the village at all and sent in opposite letters.”
Meaning, your letters opposing the project because it’ll impact the water supply of Woodbury, Blooming Grove, Cornwall, and other areas in Southern Orange County.
Page 5
More complaints about “pressure from outside elements” causing the DEC to take longer than they wanted to approve the permits. They call out a “certain well known politician” but I don’t know who that’s referring to.
I’m guessing it’s Skoufis because he publicly called out the sale of Kalaj’s home for 890% its market value, which brought unwanted attention to Stern and Ekstein’s project.
They refer to the DEC’s actions as “prolonged procrastination.”
Again, remember, this is an official government communication from South Blooming Grove that’s saying this.
Page 6
This is the key page. There’s a map of Clovewood, and the money shot, “We will keep the public informed and in the name of God we will succeed!”
This page is also where it says, “The Village officials are currently working on all fronts for prayer and war, on the political and legal fronts, with the help of God, to speed up the ‘public hearing’ to be determined and finally closed by the Ministry of Education and Culture and that the permits can be given to the project.”
No. I don’t know who the Ministry of Education and Culture refers to.
Probably worth noting here, way back in 2006, The Times Herald Record noted that Zigmond Brach (Keen Equities largest shareholder) represented the dissident faction of the Satmar community. Most likely this is a reference to the Bnei Yoel, who have been harassed and been discriminated against by KJ’s ruling faction since the 1980s. It could also be a reference to the “Zalis” aka the followers of Aaron Teitelbaum’s brother, Zalman, down in Brooklyn.
So, I’m sure a lot of you are going to have questions about The Blooming Grove Report, and you should direct those questions to The Village of South Blooming Grove.
Or a GREAT First Amendment attorney.
Because I think the (holy) shit is about to hit the fan in this town.