Jewish & World News

State police are asking the public for help after anti-Semitic messages were found all over a playground in Kiryas Joel. Police say messages of hate were found scrawled all over benches, signs and slides at the playground yesterday.

Tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews filled the Village of Kiryas Joel late Saturday night to celebrate the holiday of Lag Baomer. The event, marked with a large bonfire, song and dance, is believed to be the largest such celebration of the holiday in the United States.

New York - Orange County Executive Edward Diana Tuesday took Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to task for seeking $1 million in federal funds for an emergency operations center in the Village of Kiryas Joel.

When Orange County sued Kiryas Joel over its proposed water pipeline in 2004, one of its main concerns was the impact the project would have on an area with limited sewer service. How, county attorneys asked, would the county treat the additional sewage from Kiryas Joel if the village tapped New York City's Catskill Aqueduct? Tapping that water supply would allow Kiryas Joel's steady growth to continue, which would generate much more sewage. Six years later, as County Executive Ed Diana and Kiryas Joel officials prepare to settle the litigation that has blocked the $30 million water plan, the county has posed a simple answer to its own question. It will provide more sewer service. For all the delay and expense the court battle has caused Kiryas Joel, the village has won from Diana and the county Legislature a key to its future growth: a “binding, enforceable commitment” by the county to build more treatment capacity as soon as growing demand pushes the use of two existing s...

Orange County, NY - Woodbury officials have refused to settle a lawsuit with Kiryas Joel over additional sewer service because they say it would involve them in a legal deal over Kiryas Joel's proposed water pipeline. But their refusal may have little impact on efforts to resolve entwined litigation over the $30 million water project and the Orange County sewage treatment plant in Harriman. Attorneys for Orange County and Kiryas Joel have been negotiating to end two court cases. In one suit, the county had blocked the pipeline proposal by challenging the village's environmental study; in the other, Kiryas Joel had stopped the county from selling expanded service at the Harriman plant to Woodbury and other communities. Woodbury officials were enlisted in settlement talks for the second case because they joined the county in a court appeal. But they have rejected the proposal — even after lawyers revised it three times — because each draft tied the sewer agreement to one inv...

Kiryas Joel - As many as 557 people have gotten mumps in Kiryas Joel since an outbreak began at a Sullivan County camp last summer and spread to ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the tri-state area and Canada, health officials say. Teenage boys have been most prone to the virus. What has surprised health officials is that most patients had gotten their two recommended vaccination shots, leading to speculation that their immunity had waned since getting the second dose at around age 5. "Kiryas Joel is very well-immunized," said Dr. Jean Hudson, the Orange County health commissioner. Nurses provided by her office and New York state recently finished giving free booster shots of vaccine to some 1,800 boys and girls in sixth grade or higher in religious schools in the Satmar Hasidic community. The vaccinations were voluntary and only for kids who previously had their two shots; the state Department of Health provided the doses. Determining how well those efforts fared ...

State Police say they have daily patrols in the Village of Kiryas Joel in recent days because they want the community to know they are being protected. The trooper brass also said they won’t tolerate anymore of the large crowds of warring factions in the Hassidic village to congregate, vandalize and overturn vehicles. One car was flipped last weekend during three days of unrest that brought out State and local police in large numbers. The latest unrest apparently centers around a disputed wedding that took place, recently. Monroe State Police Barracks Commander Capt. Steven Nivens Thursday said they need to establish a sense of law and order in the village. “It has become socially acceptable in KJ to have a mob mentality whenever they get a decision that doesn’t favor one side or the other, they can get a group of 300 to 700 to 1,000 people and cause disturbances and these disturbances are getting progressively more dangerous,” he said. One resident, Moshe Klein, said people ...

Kiryas Joel – State Police had to quell disturbances over a four day period, by yeshiva students from the Village of Kiryas Joel, who were upset over a wedding that was performed last Wednesday night. They ranged from loud speaker blasts from a truck to an overturned vehicle. The wedding was the first officiated on the property of the B’nai Joel School without the presence or approval of the main congregation. Since then, state and local police officers have had to respond to Kiryas Joel on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. During the Wednesday wedding, a group of yeshiva students attempted to disrupt the wedding, and several residents of Kiryas Joel were harassed on the telephone by students from the main congregation UTA school, police said. On Thursday evening, troopers were called to the area of Satmar Drive in the village. Yeshiva students from the main congregation had a non-resident rent a small box van. The students mounted speakers and played a broadcast denoun...

The pieces of a jigsaw puzzle involving Kiryas Joel's proposed water pipeline, the Orange County sewage treatment plant and the fate of the Camp La Guardia property have begun coming together. Tuesday night, Village of Woodbury officials will meet privately to discuss a possible legal settlement Orange County has given them, one that would end a standoff with Kiryas Joel and free up more sewer service for Woodbury homes and businesses. But while they are eager to meet pent-up demand and prepare for future sewer needs, they are uncomfortable that the deal is linked to the county withdrawing its objections to a water pipeline that many of their residents oppose. "We're between a rock and a hard place," Mayor Michael Queenan said Monday. "Our sole interest here was our sewer capacity. It has nothing to do with Orange County and Kiryas Joel. It seems that KJ and the county are cutting deals, and I kind of resent that they're dragging us into it." Woo...

Kiryas Joel - The seemingly inordinate 12.14 percent increase to state aid for the Kiryas Joel School District will be revised when the state puts out new estimates in February. Numbers released Tuesday showed Kiryas Joel receiving a 74 percent increase in transportation aid, which subsequently ballooned the district’s total aid in Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget. Aid for every other school district in the mid-Hudson fell by anywhere from 3.7 to 13.8 percent. The state had to use old data to calculate transportation funding for the district because, for at least two years, Kiryas Joel hasn’t submitted claim forms, said spokeswoman Jane Briggs. The data release noted that aid for eight districts statewide was based on incomplete information. The district’s foundation aid cut was 5.4 percent and is on par with decreases to districts with similar poverty levels and tax burdens, according to the state budget office. Kiryas Joel Superintendent Joel Petlin said that transportat...