Hasidic Jews in upstate New York

KIRYAS JOEL is not like other New York suburbs. Although surrounded by bucolic winding roads and stunning vistas of the wooded foothills of the Catskill mountains, there are few stand-alone houses with big back gardens or picket fences. Almost everyone lives tightly packed in a square-mile labyrinth of multistorey condominium complexes. The population of the village, which forms part of the town of Monroe, about 40 miles (65km) north of New York City, has grown by 5% a year since 2000. For the past few years, its surging population and the resulting demands for land have put it at odds with long-time locals. After lawsuits and tense negotiations, Monroe voters will decide in a referendum on November 7th whether to separate Kiryas Joel, add some land and create a new town, to be called Palm Tree.

Kiryas Joel was founded in the 1970s by Joel Teitelbaum, the grand rebbe of the Satmar Hasidic sect. The community has grown from 500 in 1977 to more than 22,000 today. Many of the new arrivals were priced out of their old neighbourhoods in trendy Brooklyn. Part of the growth is driven by Hasidic custom: women marry young and have big families. But many of the families are struggling, with more than half below the poverty line.

Like other Brooklyn-ites, Hasids like to live within walking distance of synagogue and kosher delicatessens and butchers, and close to ritual bathhouses and yeshivas (schools). The rural footpaths are packed with women in long skirts, who cover their hair with hats, wigs or scarves, and are usually pushing a pram while holding a few more children by the hand. Bearded men, wearing black coats and brimmed hats, walk purposefully. Street and shop signs are often in Yiddish or Hebrew. The conversations are conducted in Yiddish. There is little interaction with their non-Hasidic neighbours.

“The tension [between the two groups] is not coming from a place of anti-Semitism,”, says Samuel Heilman, an expert on Orthodox Judaism and a professor at Queens College. But tensions there are. A “Welcome to Kiryas Joel” sign asks visitors to wear long skirts and sleeves past the elbow and to “maintain gender separation in all public areas”. It would be illegal to pass a law to this effect, but such a rule is already enforced by custom. Kiryas Joel already has its own school district, where boys and girls receive a religious education in separate classrooms.

The village also has increasing political muscle. Four years ago, Kiryas Joel showed itself to be a strong voting bloc, when most of its votes went to the winner in an election to choose Monroe’s town supervisor. More than half of all voters will be Hasidic by 2021, according to one estimate.

Some of Monroe’s non-Hasids see the split as a way to restore their political voice, and end years of feuding. Others see the split as just delaying the inevitable end of Monroe. Although the referendum’s terms dictate that no further annexation will be permitted for ten years, Kiryas Joel is already bursting at the seams and residents are spilling into other parts of Monroe and into neighbouring towns. Monroe will see a drop of 10% in tax revenues if the referendum passes, requiring either spending cuts or tax increases. If Monroe votes to split itself next week, the new town of Palm Tree will be founded in 2020.