They are two very different types of Jewish leaders in a small town, more than a century apart. Charles Fleischmann pretty much built the village that would eventually be named in his honor, Fleischmans, in the Catskills region of New York. Rabbi Abraham Horowitz leads a Brooklyn synagogue within the Spinka Hasidic sect, and a series of lawsuits cast him as an invader.

Fleischmann’s Yeast is a household name, and its Hungarian Jewish immigrant founder wanted a summer getaway in the late 19th century, when he bought up five houses in a bucolic region often exclusive to WASPS. The Catskills village originally known as Griffin’s Corner welcomed his family in the summer months, along with other affluent Jews seeking seasonal getaways. 

The village bloomed with Charles’ help. In addition to those who, like Charles, bought homes in the village, many Jewish summer vacationers stayed at hotels owned by Fleishmann, feasting on kosher food and boosting the local economy. Charles and his family erected a park and a baseball field. When they sold their compound in 1913, his family donated these facilities to the village that had greeted them for so many years, and the village took his family’s name. Griffin’s Corner would now be the town of Fleischmanns, and so it has been for 110 years since.

Today, Fleischmanns still isn’t large, with just 210 year-round residents. But in the past five years it has seen its voter rolls grow by about half, due to an influx of Spinka Hasidic Jews, who are bringing a spirit of change with them, led by their rabbi, Horowitz.

The rabbi of a small synagogue inside a brown-brick townhouse at 192 Keap Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Horowitz, somewhat similar to Charles Fleischmann, houses his flock as summertime residents in a cluster of relatively modest properties that residents of Fleischmanns have dubbed his “compound.” It’s not a kind wording, and it’s probably not meant to be, indicating some of the divide between long-time, year-round residents, and the seasonal Hasidic influx Horowitz brings.

Their conflict includes questions about sex-segregated swimming hours in the public pool, two lawsuits over absentee ballots submitted by Rabbi Horowitz’s congregants, and a large real estate developer. Amid it all, naturally, are allegations of antisemitism countered by claims from year-round residents, many of whom are Jewish but not Hasidic, that a village shouldn’t have to change its character.

A review of several years’ worth of village meeting minutes, court papers from multiple lawsuits, and tax assessment rolls tells the story of Fleischmann’s transformation from a tranquil village to one ravaged by disputes.

A catalyzing figure is real estate developer Wigdor Mendlovic, a member of Rabbi Horowitz’s Spinka sect, who, along with his son, owns about 20 properties in Fleischmanns listed under various LLCs and corporations. Mendlovic sued the town in 2021 after the town stripped one of his properties of its zoning status as a hotel. But Mendlovic soon had a local government more favorable to his business: two new members were elected to the town’s four-seat board of trustees, rezoning Mendlovic’s property as a hotel soon after their election, after which Mendlovic dropped his lawsuit.

The next year, Horowitz’s son delivered a bundle of absentee ballots he’d gathered from the synagogue’s congregants. With the two remaining seats on the town board open, the chosen candidates of Mendlovic and Horowitz garnered 120 absentee votes apiece, while the two defeated candidates received 54 or fewer votes, seemingly all cast in-person. The Spinka-supported faction now controlled all four board seats.

In response, defeated candidates Elizabeth Hughes and Daniel Halpren filed the first of multiple lawsuits involving electoral matters in Fleischmanns, alleging that a “religious sect” was trying to “take control of the village of Fleischmanns government by fraud.” The two claimed that Mendlovic and Horowitz helped summer renters from New Jersey and New York vote “illegally” via absentee ballots. 

But the law surrounding residency for voting purposes isn’t crystal clear. In New York State, voters who hold more than one residency must select a single home for voting purposes. The state election law defines residency as “that place where a person maintains a fixed, permanent and principal home and to which he, wherever temporarily located, always intends to return.” Conflicting readings of this clause and opinions about whether it should be strictly interpreted have helped shape the course of the extended Fleischmanns dispute. 

There is also a matter of the passage of time. Even if certain absentee ballots shouldn’t have been allowed in an election, a judge might not have the power to overturn the election after the fact. That’s the argument Delaware County Supreme Court Judge Brian Burns offered when he dismissed the lawsuit. Making no suggestion that the contested voters had acted out of bounds, though acknowledging the “serious” nature of Halpren and Hughes’ allegations, Burns said he lacked the authority to remove either trustee from office after the Village Clerk had certified the election. The question of cheating in the election was left unsettled, but even if cheating had occurred, it was too late for a judge to stop it.

The local sheriff’s office made its effort to close the barn door after the cows were gone: the office investigated and declared that most of the voter registrations behind absentee ballots were invalid. The Delaware County Board of Elections then purged those registrations from voter rolls, too late to affect the election.

Meanwhile, the Spinka-supported board members quickly brought cultural conflict into the management of the town. During an April 2022 village board meeting, Aaron Goldring, one of the newly-elected trustees, proposed gender-segregated swimming times at the community pool. Long-time residents expressed anger at the suggestion.

“This is a secular nation,” said Christine Panas, a Fleischmanns restaurant owner, in response. Calling Goldring’s suggestion of mixed-gender swimming “a problem,” she declared, “that kind of comment will not be forgotten soon.”

Vicky Szerko, a Fleischmanns homeowner of several decades, expressed bewilderment that the town board member proposing segregated swimming was unfamiliar to her, in the small town. “Most of us had never heard of you or ever seen you,” she said. “Yet here you are, elected by overwhelming margins – how do you suppose that happened? Why are you here? What is your agenda and who do you represent?”

Other Fleischmanns residents chimed in to say that Goldring hadn’t shown up in person to campaign in the town. Goldring’s non-summer months are spent at an address in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Amid the discord, the Spinka community continued to press for an electoral advantage, with new absentee ballots in yet another annual election. Rabbi Horowitz orchestrated a voter registration drive at his Brooklyn synagogue this past March, in which congregants who “struggle[d] with the English language” received assistance filling out registrations and “uniformly voted for the candidates [Rabbi Horowitz] endorsed,” according to a legal ruling. 

This time, the long-time residents of Fleischmanns were prepared to sue before the ballots were cast. 

Four days before the elections, the village clerk alerted several candidates for mayor and trusteeships that 114 voter registrations might not be valid. Leaping at the intelligence, the candidates from the long-time-residents faction filed a lawsuit before election day, asking for an order to have the clerk set aside any and all ballots cast from challenged registrations – a group of 81 ballots, all delivered absentee, out of the 194 total ballots cast. Waiting for a ruling, the 81 absentee ballots sat unopened, the election results unclear.

With Burns presiding a second time, the plaintiffs brought forth evidence in an effort to prove why each of the 81 contested residents did not truly reside in Fleischmanns. They alleged, among other things, that many of the contested residents claimed to live in tax-exempt properties, including in properties belonging to their congregation’s “compound” — three fenced-in buildings with sanctuary and residential space — too small to accommodate all of them. While the congregants denied some of those claims, their rebuttal relied emphatically on narrative.

During in-person civil hearings held in April, Rabbi Horowitz’s congregants, including his extended family members, “uniformly testified” their “deep connection” with Fleischmanns. Burns ruled in their favor, quoting a congregant by the name of Tzivia Horowitz, who said she “loves Fleischmanns so much, and has spent so much time there, she feels familiar with every rock, stone and tree in the village.” 

According to the decision, “[e]very challenged voter testified that they intend on returning to Fleischmanns every summer for the indefinite future.” 

In his May ruling, as opposed to the first lawsuit, Burns responded to the question of the contested residents’ registrations, finding that the absentee voters’ registrations passed muster.

In language sympathetic to the Hasidic voters, Burns cited legal precedent indicating that voting from a seasonal residence does not constitute a “sham,” as plaintiffs had argued, saying that the court of appeals had “long ago” adopted a looser interpretation of election law. He also asserted that the contested residents had legitimate “cultural differences” accounting for their choice to vote from unfixed addresses, including the Horowitz compound.

The long-time residents appealed Burns’ decision, and lost there, too. The long-time residents still have some matters pending before Burns, and are also hanging their hopes on an investigation launched by the New York Attorney General that was later taken over by the U.S. Attorney General.

Per the appellate court’s ruling, all contested ballots have now been opened and counted, and the elected officials have taken their seats.

A rare episode in the history of American politics, Fleischmanns’ mayor and all four board of trustees owe their seats to absentee ballots.

In a town named after its most famous summer resident of a century ago, the vacationers are in charge.