NY shuts down 10,000 person wedding as Cuomo reveals new COVID-19 plan

[Miigwech]

36. The Hasidic Community in Rockland County

Very insular very secretive. Fact is, most, if not all of the Hasidic population receive Medicaid from NY. If I were the Governor I would get with the leaders of the community and demand that follow the laws about Covid-19 oor there will be be cuts to programs. The voting bloc that the Hasidim represent in NYS is very powerful, no politician wants to cross them. I applaud Cuomo for his stance, this is a very brave move to stand up like this. We have to see what flack he takes at the ballot box. There is a lot more behind this story than a wedding.

In Rockland County, non-Orthodox try to create alternative to Hasidic dominance

Many of the haredim’s most strident opponents have been non-Orthodox Jews. But for years, non-Orthodox Jewish leaders largely stayed silent, caught in the middle between their Orthodox coreligionists and their non-Jewish neighbors.

Then, about a year ago, non-Orthodox leaders decided it was time to take sides in the East Ramapo school board fight, with many publicly aligning themselves with their non-Jewish neighbors and lobbying for state intervention.

Meanwhile, the local federation and other non-Orthodox Jewish community leaders have launched a campaign to bolster the image of Jewish life in Rockland County and reverse the decline of its non-Orthodox Jewish institutions.

“We’re really trying to bring people to the county because it’s a beautiful place to live,” said Diane Sloyer, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Rockland County, which is funding many of the efforts from an annual budget of about $1 million. “It’s not just the bad stuff you read about in the papers. There’s a lot of good here, but how are people supposed to know?”
Non-Orthodox rabbis were among those at a news conference of Rockland Clergy for Social Justice calling for more state control over the controversial East Ramapo school board, Feb. 18, 2015. (Katrina Hertzberg)

In late 2013, Rabbi Adam Baldachin of the Conservative Montebello Jewish Center led a group of rabbis who joined with the local NAACP chapter and Christian and Muslim leaders to organize a counterweight to the East Ramapo school board. The interfaith group, Rockland Clergy for Social Justice, which now includes 11 Conservative and Reform rabbis in the county, began holding public events and lobbying the state government in Albany to intervene with the school board. Retired teachers from at least one temple are volunteering to teach and help public school students in East Ramapo, the vast majority of whom are black or Latino. (Between 1989 and 2009, the proportion of non-white students in East Ramapo’s public schools skyrocketed from 38 percent to 93 percent due to an influx of immigrants and “white flight” from the district

https://jewishorangeny.org/jewish-life/wao-weekly-e-blast-news-articles/in-rockland-county-non-orthodox-try-to-create-alternat