Residents of the Village of Airmont, near Monsey, are accusing local officials of failing to respond to several complaints about a rabbi they say is defying zoning laws by operating a yeshiva and dormitory out of a cluster of single-family houses, multiple news outlets reported.

The yeshiva, which is led by Sephardic rabbi Arash Nissan Hakakian, is said to be occupying a number of houses on Airmont’s Fosse Court. The yeshiva caters specifically to Sephardic students, according to a promotional video featuring Hakakian.

Unusually for a case like this, the complaints have been coming from both Haredi and non-Haredi neighbors. Critics told Lohud and NBC News that they have been harassed by Hakakian’s followers.

“This man is trying to take over a whole neighborhood,” an anonymous source told NBC News. “If we speak out, he sends some of his men to intimidate us, to bully.”

The local advocacy organization CUPON, or Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods, has also criticized the village for failing to enforce zoning codes. CUPON has chapters in many areas that have Haredi communities, and seeks to protect against overdevelopment and other areas of environmental impact, although some Haredi leaders have accused the organization of antisemitism in the past. 

The local building inspector, Louis Zummo, told NBC News that the village zoning enforcement staff has been gutted by Airmont’s board of trustees.

On Monday, Fosse Court neighbor Sharon Stern filed a lawsuit against the yeshiva and village officials, naming Hakakian, Zummo, Airmont Mayor Nathan Bubel, and the village’s board of trustees.

The New York State Department of Health issued a $300,000 fine for UTA of Kiryas Joel, a yeshiva serving the Aaronite Satmar faction, after the school allowed 121 children to attend school for more than 100 days without having received the vaccinations required by the state. The school was previously told that it could be made to pay up to $61 million for the violations. 

As part of an agreement school leaders made with the DOH, the school agreed to review all students’ immunization records, tell DOH how many of them are out of compliance, and exclude those students from attending class. The school must also develop a plan to review immunization records on a regular basis.

The school will have to pay $150,000 within 30 days of Feb. 21, the effective date of the agreement. As for the other half of the penalty, if the school achieves and maintains full compliance with school vaccination laws through the 2027-2028 school year, the DOH will not require it to be paid.

According to New York State law, “No principal, teacher, owner or person in charge of a school shall permit any child to be admitted to such school, or to attend such school, in excess of fourteen days” without evidence that the child has received the vaccinations that are required in order to attend school.

New York City Councilman Kalman Yeger, who represents Borough Park and parts of Midwood, both of which have sizable Haredi populations, told Hamodia on Monday that he will seek election to the state Assembly to represent the 41st district. His announcement came immediately after Assemblymember Helene Weinstein, who currently represents the district, announced that she would retire at the end of this term. According to Hamodia, Weinstein immediately endorsed Yeger as her replacement.

Yeger is a conservative Democrat, in line with most Haredim in New York, who lean conservative in their views but often vote for Democratic candidates. In a statement to Hamodia, Yeger said, “With Senator Simcha Felder and Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein already leading the fight for our community in Albany, I look forward to the opportunity to join them and to make the case to my neighbors for the opportunity to represent all of us in Albany.”

Yeger was previously an aide to Councilman David Greenfield, before succeeding him after Greenfield was term-limited. Greenfield is now CEO at Met Council for Jewish Poverty, and has already endorsed Yeger for the Assembly race. “Nobody understands New York City and New York State government like Kalman Yeger does,” Greenfield told Hamodia.

Weinstein represented the district for 44 years, and has forged close ties with Haredi leaders. She served for many years as the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, a powerful committee that has significant control over which bills make it to the Assembly floor.

Chaskel Bennett, a board member at Agudath Israel, offered Weinstein congratulations on an “extraordinary career,” writing on X, formerly Twitter: “Few, if any, have served their constituents with more respect, effectiveness, and sensitivity. Helene is known far and wide as someone of deep integrity, and we have all been extremely well served by her and her dedicated staff.”

Hamodia is already reporting on the likely candidates to succeed Yeger, which include Senator Simcha Felder, who would return to the Council after being term-limited there before getting elected to the State Senate. Other potential candidates include Pinny Ringel, who is the Jewish Liaison for Mayor Eric Adams and was elected district leader with Adams’s help, pushing out candidate David Schwartz, who was reported to have earned Adams’s wrath for backing Andrew Yang in the mayoral race.

There’s little overlap between Yeger’s Council district and the Assembly district he’ll be running for, but both serve large Orthodox populations. Yeger’s residence is on one of the few blocks located within the small overlap between districts.

A Chabad-organized event attracted thousands of teenagers to Times Square on Saturday night to “celebrate their Jewish Pride,” according to a post by Chabad.org on X, formerly Twitter. 

The event, “A Solidarity of Teens,” was organized by CTeen, or Chabad Teen Network, which bills itself as “the fastest growing network of Jewish teens,” and is geared to Jewish teenagers worldwide.

The event featured a concert by popular Israeli singer Gad Elbaz, and drew teens from a diverse spectrum of Jewish backgrounds, including both Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. The teens sang and danced to popular Jewish songs expressing unity and solidarity with all Jews. 

“Jewish pride is everything,” one teenaged boy said in a video taken at the event. “It’s our roots, our families, our friends, we are all united.” Others, too, spoke about feelings of belonging and connectedness, and valuing their Jewish heritage and identity. The video was posted on Instagram by Miriam Ezagui, an Orthodox Jewish influencer with nearly two million followers on TikTok.

A havdalah ceremony, a ritual event marking the end of Shabbos, was dedicated to the hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, and to IDF soldiers currently fighting against Hamas in Gaza. Three Israeli teenagers from the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon and from kibbutz Be’eri, all of which had come under attack on Oct. 7, held havdalah candles meant to symbolize “carrying the light of the Jewish people.” 

Since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, Jewish teenagers in the U.S. have reported feelings of isolation and fear as antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have surged, and Jewish college students find their own peers posting antisemitic comments online.

According to its website, C-Teen has 730 chapters in 58 countries, and was created in order to fuse “fun, friendship, humanitarian outreach, mitzvah observance, and engaging Torah study.”

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An article published this week in the Yiddish-language newspaper Der Blatt cited a letter it claimed was from the New York State Police issuing what it called a “sharp warning against civilian use” of sirens and flashing emergency lights.

Turns out, that was completely fake news. 

The fraudulent document, which first circulated on WhatsApp and other social media, had the New York State Police emblem on it and was addressed to residents of Orange County. The fake letter claimed that “unauthorized” lights and sirens were causing “serious risks to public safety.” 

According to Trooper Steven Nevel, public information officer for the branch of the state police that covers Orange County, the document was fake.

“This letter did not come from the New York State Police,” Nevel wrote in an email to Shtetl.

Der Blatt, a major Hasidic newspaper affiliated with the Aaronite Satmar faction, said the letter “issued a sharp warning against civilian use of blaring sirens and red or blue flashing lights.” Der Blatt did not immediately respond to Shtetl’s request for comment.

The letter appears to have been first published on X, formerly Twitter, by KolHaolam, an account that posts regular but unattributed news items with a particular focus on the Orthodox Jewish world. The post said, “The New York State Police is cracking down on illegal use of red and blue emergency lights in personal vehicles.” KolHaolam did not immediately respond to Shtetl’s request for comment, but the original post with the fake letter was deleted immediately after Shtetl reached out. It is not clear who created the fake letter or why.

Lights and sirens are often used by private Orthodox volunteer organizations, such as Hatzalah, an emergency medical services provider. They are also used in the motorcades of major rabbinic figures, such as the grand rabbis of larger Hasidic sects.

NYPD inspector Richie Taylor, a fixture in the Orthodox and Haredi political scene and who is himself Orthodox, is being promoted to deputy chief of the NYPD, Hamodia reported.

While his family was not strictly Orthodox when he was growing up, Taylor asked his parents to switch him from public school to a yeshiva during his elementary school years. He then attended Yeshiva of Manhattan Beach, according to an interview he did with Living L'chaim.

Taylor served as a Hatzalah member for years, and was among the first responders to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. He joined the NYPD in 2005, and has been rising steadily in the ranks. These days, he speaks highly of Mayor Eric Adams and says he has a close relationship with the mayor’s Haredi senior advisor, Joel Eisdorfer.

In comments to Hamodia regarding his promotion, Taylor said, “Thank you, Hashem!”

Several Haredi leaders and elected officials offered warm praise for Taylor’s promotion, including Chabad leader Chanina Sperlin, Satmar activist and close mayoral ally Rabbi Abe Friedman, and Councilman Kalman Yeger.

Three years after Haredi leaders successfully lobbied then-president Donald Trump to commute the sentence of twice-convicted Lakewood fraudster Eliyahu Weinstein, Weinstein was indicted on Tuesday for allegedly running another Ponzi scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of New Jersey.

Federal law enforcement officials say that Weinstein and his business associate, Aryeh Bromberg, who is also of Lakewood, solicited investors for ostensibly investing in a healthcare product distributor through an investment firm named Optimus. The recent indictment charges Weinstein and Bromberg with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, four counts of wire fraud, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. 

Weinstein’s first conviction came a decade ago. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to multiple fraud-related charges in a real estate Ponzi scheme that caused $200 million in losses, in which many of the victims were fellow members of Lakewood’s Haredi community. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison. While he was on pretrial release in 2014, he was sentenced to an additional two years in prison after he pleaded guilty to fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering charges.

Trump commuted Weinstein’s sentence on the last day of his term in office after multiple Haredi leaders implored him to do so. “He has displayed deep remorse and broken-heartedly vows never to repeat his past mistakes,” wrote Rabbi Nochum Dov Brayer of the Boyaner Hasidic sect. Moshe Margaretten of the Tzedek Association, who is from the Skver Hasidic sect, and leading Haredi rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, who passed away in 2022, also petitioned Trump to release Weinstein.

Law enforcement officials say that in Weinstein’s latest scheme, he used the alias “Mike Konig” to obscure his identity, along with his criminal past, from investors. When some purported deals turned out to be unprofitable, prosecutors claim, Weinstein and his associates began using funds from new investors to pay earlier investors, claiming the funds were investment returns.

A new bill drafted in the New York State legislature would quadruple the minimum amount of SNAP, also known as food stamps, which is widely used by Haredi families.

SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is a federally funded program managed at the state level, which offers needy families funds for purchasing essential food items. Currently, households that qualify for SNAP may receive as little as $23 per month. The new legislation calls to raise the minimum to $100.

The program is relied upon heavily by Haredi communities, where poverty rates are high and family sizes are large. Partial data for Haredi SNAP usage can be seen in figures available for all-Haredi locales. Over 64% of households in the Hasidic village of New Square and nearly 50% of households in the village of Kaser, a Vizhnitz Hasidic enclave within Monsey, receive SNAP benefits, according to data from the American Community Survey. By comparison, only 14% of New York State residents overall received SNAP benefits.

The legislation is sponsored in the Assembly by Jessica González-Rojas, who represents Jackson Heights, Queens, and in the Senate by Rachel May, whose district includes Syracuse and other Central New York areas. The bill has multiple sponsors and co-sponsors, including Assemblymember Emily Gallaghar, who represents Williamsburg, which has a sizable Hasidic community, and Senator Zellnor Myrie, who represents Crown Heights, the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

As of this reporting, neither Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein nor Senator Simcha Felder, both of whom represent Hasidic communities in Brooklyn, have co-sponsored the legislation. But Eichenstein told Shtetl he has co-signed a letter to Governor Hochul requesting an appropriation in the budget to fund the program.

Many Haredi families receive more than the minimum already, and the program is not likely to impact them.

The bill was inspired by a pandemic-era program that automatically gave SNAP recipients a monthly increase. That program expired last March.

A five-year-old Hasidic girl, identified by multiple outlets as Toba Ruchel Neuman, was struck and killed on Friday by a school bus driving her home from her Satmar school.

The girl had just been dropped off at her home in Spring Valley when the bus struck her, according to Yeshiva World News. Hamodia reported that Hatzolah members arrived within minutes, but could not save the girl’s life. 

In a press release, the Spring Valley Police Department said it traveled to the scene immediately after being notified at 11:15 a.m, and is investigating the matter.

The tragedy comes just weeks after eight-year-old Mordechai Pinchas Spitzer was struck and killed less than three miles away by a school bus right outside of his school, in the Hasidic village of New Square.

Steve White, a Ramapo resident who advocates for local public school students, said the two deaths — and many injuries that preceded them — are not a coincidence, but rather a result of years of poor choices by the East Ramapo Central School District, which contracts with private bus companies to transport public and private school students alike.

“I personally see these private bus companies whizzing through town at high rates of speed and cutting corners,” White told Shtetl. “I’ve seen a bunch of drivers on their cell phones while they’re driving the buses.”

White said the district should switch bus companies.

Clarence Ellis, the superintendent of the school district, was not immediately available to respond to White’s comments.

In a column advocating less smartphone use, New York Times writer Kashmir Hill held up an unlikely exemplar: a Haredi-owned cabinet manufacturer in Newark, New Jersey.

Last May, Joel Epstein, the Hasidic owner of Fabuwood, instituted a new policy by asking employees to deposit their smartphones on a shelf outside each meeting room. Employees are also asked to generally abstain from using their smartphones during work hours. Fabuwood also offers to pay for employees’ phones for anyone who switches to a flip phone. After six months, Fabuwood reported a 20% increase in productivity as a result of the new policy.

Back in October, Epstein posted to his LinkedIn account reflecting on the positive benefits of giving up his own smartphone seven years ago. 

In an article titled “A Practical Guide to Quitting Your Smartphone,” Hill described how she learned about Fabuwood after writing an earlier article about the benefits of switching to a flip phone, which, in her experience, helped her reduce stress, allowed her more reading time, and reminded her of the pleasure of conversation while running with her husband.  

Last week, Der Yid, a Satmar-affiliated Yiddish-language newspaper, took particular satisfaction with the Times’s article, saying that Mr. Epstein, a Kiryas Joel resident, made a “Kiddush Hashem” — loosely translated: made observant Jews look good. Der Yid has otherwise been no fan of the Times, criticizing it especially in recent years for its coverage of Hasidic yeshivas and their failure to provide students with legally required secular studies education.

Smartphones are frowned upon within many Haredi communities, especially when they come with unfiltered internet. In some Hasidic communities, smartphones are forbidden altogether. Many Haredi synagogues have signs prohibiting the use of smartphones inside prayer and study areas.

One Jewish, but non-Haredi congress member, Senator Chuck Schumer, has been known for using a flip phone despite his high profile and his busy schedule.

New York Attorney General Letitia James met recently with local leaders at Rockland Community College to discuss antisemitism and mental health, multiple Haredi news outlets reported.

Leaders discussed antisemitism on social media, in schools, and on college campuses, and mental health among youth and police officers, and busing to Haredi schools in the county, according to the Rockland Daily.

According to a video from the event posted by the Monsey Scoop, the event was organized by Yoel Lefkowitz, James’s director of Jewish outreach and Intergovernmental affairs, Rockland legislator Aron Wieder, and Mona Montal, Ramapo supervisor’s Chief of Staff. Also present were District Attorney Tom Walsh, New Square Mayor Izzy Spitzer, and Josef Margaretten, coordinator for Chaverim of Rockland, along with many other local leaders.

“Because of your leadership, the leadership of our law enforcement, our district attorney, that we can stand proud and say, ‘We’re not afraid to be Jewish,’” Montal is seen saying in the video. “Come at us and we’re gonna come back at you,” she said, then pointed at James: “Because we have you standing with us.”

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Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat who has ingratiated himself with Haredi leaders, won his election on Tuesday to take over disgraced politician George Santos’s seat in the U.S. Congress.

With 93% of ballots counted as of Wednesday morning, Suozzi leads Republican Mazi Pilip, an Orthodox Jew, by about eight percentage points. Suozzi will represent a district that includes parts of northeastern Queens and the North Shore of Long Island, an area that does not include many Hasidic or Litvish residents, aside from Chabad emissaries. The district is, however, home to a growing community of Bukharian Jews, separate from the community’s main base in Forest Hills, Queens. 

Suozzi, who is staunchly pro-Israel, represented this district in Congress before leaving to run for governor of New York. During that race, he courted Haredi leaders’ support, meeting with Chabad-Lubavitch leaders and attending a Satmar event. He was endorsed in the primary by Chabad rabbi Shea Hecht. Suozzi also received campaign contributions from Leon Goldenberg, a trustee for the Haredi organization Agudath Israel of America, and Rabbi Michael Melnick, who made his contribution using the address for the main headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch community, 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

Suozzi explained his views on the state of Haredi education during his gubernatorial bid. In 2022, he told the New York Times editorial board that he believed 99% of Jewish schools offered “very good” education, and for the rest, “you should be calling them out and trying to send a task force in there to try and persuade them to change.” When a member of the board told Suozzi that the state had been unsuccessful in using that strategy, Suozzi said, “I don’t know that it hasn’t worked.”

Tuesday’s special election took place after Santos was expelled from Congress on Dec. 1 after prosecutors accused him of misusing campaign funds.