Despite a last-minute postponement attempt, members of the Vizhnitz Hasidic community voted on Thursday to approve the new village of Ateres in Sullivan County, allowing them to elect their own mayor, pass laws, and modify zoning rules, according to MidHudson News. The vote was 226 to 2.

The referendum almost didn’t happen. According to multiple news outlets, Town of Thompson Supervisor Bill Rieber and Town of Fallsburg Supervisor Michael Bensimon tried to cancel the referendum in light of new state laws for village incorporation. But at the last minute, Sullivan County Supreme Court Judge Stephan Schick ordered that the election be held anyway, according to the River Reporter.

In December, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed two bills that make it harder to form new villages by raising the population requirement from 500 to 1,500. But she negotiated an exception for Ateres, which would not otherwise have met the new requirements.

Rieber had raised objections to the new village in the past, calling it a “scheme” for control over zoning laws, according to the Sullivan County Democrat.

The area of the proposed village contains an existing community of Vizhnitz Hasidim, who had set up a yeshiva several decades ago on the site of the old Gibber Hotel opposite Kiamesha Lake. Today, the community has expanded into a 929-acre enclave with a population of over 800, and includes a large synagogue, a supermarket, and other community services.

The vote was held at the synagogue Khal Toras Chaim Viznitz.

A federal lawsuit filed last December alleged that a Sullivan County town showed anti-Hasidic bias in attempting to prevent Hasidic developers from building a 2,600-home residential community, the Times Herald-Record reported.

According to the lawsuit, the town of Forestburgh denied building permits, imposed exorbitant new fees, and created unusual procedural hurdles for Hasidic developers — even though the town supported a similar development on the same property when initially proposed by a Texas developer in 2011. After the property was sold to Hasidic developers, the town appeared to change its stance, allegedly fearing an influx of Hasidic residents. Finally, in November, the town instituted a zoning change that, the suit claims, sought to nullify the development’s approval status.

This is the developers’ second lawsuit against the town of Forestburgh. In the first one, the plaintiffs — with support from Agudath Israel of America — objected to having had their building permits denied.

The town of Forestburgh is a short drive from the towns of Thompson and Fallsburg and the village of Bloomingburg, which have large Hasidic communities.

A husband and wife in Borough Park suffered multiple stab wounds inside their home Saturday night, and were declared dead at the hospital a short time later. The couple’s son, who had barricaded himself inside the home for about an hour, was arrested as a “person of interest.”

Police arrived at around 5:20 p.m. to a 911 call at the home of Jacob and Rachel Sperber on 45th Street to find Hatzolah medics rushing the couple to the Maimonides Medical Center, according to the New York City Police Department and multiple news outlets. Both were 75 years old and died from their wounds. Their 46-year-old son was taken into police custody.

Community members at the scene from within Borough Park’s tight-knit Haredi community appeared to be reeling from the incident. “This never happens here,” one neighbor told the New York Daily News. “I am shocked. We are all in big shock.”

“They were special people,” another neighbor, Schmiel Weiss, said about the couple.

The Borough Park section of Brooklyn is home to a largely Haredi population belonging to various Hasidic sects. In 2022, the neighborhood had one of the lowest violent crime rates in New York City, according to police statistics.

The NYPD said the investigation remains ongoing.

New York City Councilmember Kalman Yeger was removed from his post as chair of the council’s Standards and Ethics Committee on Thursday. The group oversees the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board and investigates concerns about councilmembers’ conduct.

Yeger, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer who has represented parts of Brooklyn, including Borough Park and Midwood, since 2018, became chair of the Standards and Ethics Committee in 2022. 

At a press conference, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams declined to comment in detail about committee reassignments, but said part of the goal was to “get new energy.”

“With regard to committee changes, I get the impulse to speculate and try to figure it out,” said Adams, who is a Democrat. “It’s good to change things, it’s good to reorganize, it’s good to get new energy behind different desks.”

A Democrat, Yeger doesn’t always vote with the rest of his party. He is a member of the council’s “common-sense caucus,” a 9-member group composed mostly of Republicans. 

In 2019, Yeger was removed from the council’s Immigration Committee when he said “Palestine does not exist.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, he protested against lockdown measures in Orthodox neighborhoods alongside firebrand Republican Heshy Tischler. In 2022, he endorsed Lee Zeldin in the Republican primary for the New York gubernatorial election. Recently, he introduced legislation that would require the city to study the feasibility of offering tuition vouchers to families sending kids to private schools.

The new chair of the Standards and Ethics Committee is Councilmember Sandra Ung, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens. Yeger was not only removed as chair, but will no longer serve on the Standards and Ethics Committee at all. He will, however, serve as a member of several other committees, including the Oversight and Investigations Committee, the Public Safety Committee, and the Fire and Emergency Management Committee.

Yeger did not respond to messages from Shtetl on Thursday.

Representing another Haredi cmmunity, Councilmember Lincoln Restler, a Democrat whose district includes South Williamsburg, became chair of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legistlation.

Grafton Thomas, the Orange County man charged with attacking five Hasidic men with a machete in a rabbi’s home in Monsey, has been deemed still incompetent to stand trial, News 12 Westchester reported.

The machete attack took place in 2019, when a masked man broke into a Chanukah party at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg and began stabbing the guests. Five men were wounded, and one, 72-year-old Josef Neumann, died of his injuries months after the attack. The attack, which was one of several attacks against Jews that took place in the New York area just that month, drew nationwide attention.

Thomas was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia a year before the attack and had also been suffering from depression and psychosis for years, according to Thomas’s family and his lawyer, Michael Sussman.

Sussman said that he doesn’t expect Thomas, who is a patient at the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center, to be able to stand trial anytime soon. “His condition remains unchanged from my experience with him,” Sussman wrote in an email to Shtetl.

Thomas has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and committing a federal hate crime. Afederal judge is expected to receive an update about Thomas’s condition next month, but the case itself is adjourned until December 2025.

A man from New Square who caused a deadly head-on collision while speeding in the motorcade of the Skver Grand Rabbi, has avoided any criminal charges and will get off with an $886 fine and nine points on his license, according to a report from News 12.

As Shtetl previously reported, Chaim Gordon was driving his Ford Explorer in a motorcade carrying the Skver rabbi when he crossed into oncoming traffic at 76 MPH in a 50 MPH zone, losing control and crashing into a Nissan Xterra driven by Iksong Jin who died.

After initially facing a harsher criminal charge of reckless driving, it was withdrawn under mysterious circumstances. He later entered a plea deal that would have seen him face a fine of over $1,000 and “at least 10 points” according to a statement the Orange County District Attorney gave to News 12 at the time.

The Orange County DA’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Shtetl asking why penalties were reduced.

Relationship and intimacy coach Shaindy Bilgrei, who recently faced a harsh ban by a group of rabbis, has issued a response in several Haredi magazines defending herself and her record. In her reply to the ban, she calls out those who have defamed her, and she holds them responsible for a loss of income.

As Shtetl previously reported, Shaindy Bilgrei is a relationship and intimacy coach serving the Haredi community. Her lectures are featured on Torah Anytime. Her talks stress love of God and Torah, but she also helps women appreciate their self-worth and make space for their own needs.

A series of rabbinic notices and proclamations signed by several dozen rabbis appeared a couple weeks ago, calling Bilgrei's guidance “crooked advice from impure sources.” The notices were published in several Hasidic newspapers, including Der Yid and Der Blatt.

In her response, Bilgrei insists she has support from notable rabbis, that her lectures have benefited over 10,000 women, and that any rabbis who contacted her to seek clarity about her lectures expressly told the ban organizers that they were not signing on.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul gave a state of the state address on Tuesday in which she proposed expanding the list of offenses eligible for prosecution as hate crimes to include all forms of first-degree rape, gang assault, making graffiti, arson, and others. 

According to the New York Police Department, antisemitic hate crimes increased by 214% in October, when Hamas attacked Israel and war ensued. 

Assemblymember Simcha Eichenstein, who represents a largely Haredi community in Brooklyn, said it’s important for the state to address antisemitism. “I have constituents that are afraid to ride the subway right now,” Eichenstein told Shtetl. 

David Greenfield, the CEO of the Metropolitan Council of Jewish Poverty, said he wanted to see the details of the proposal, but agreed that hate crimes must be addressed. “We have to do more around the issue of hate crimes,” Greenfield told Shtetl.  

Assemblymember David Weprin, who represents parts of Queens, thanked Hochul for placing a “major focus” on fighting hate crimes. “There’s no question that we have a major problem now with antisemitism,” he said. 

Also present at a reception following the State of the State address were Yoel Lefkowitz, the director of Jewish outreach and intergovernmental affairs for Attorney General Letitia James; Jason Koppel, a political director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; Israel Spitzer, the mayor of the Hasidic village of New Square, Michael Miller, the CEO emeritus of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York; Noam Gilboord, the interim CEO of the JCRC-NY; and Gil Cygler, an executive board member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

An ad in a Haredi magazine in Rockland County urged women not to wear their wigs for three days so as to “awaken divine mercy” and for God to protect the Jewish people during these turbulent times.

Most married Haredi women wear wigs, as a woman wearing her natural hair uncovered is deemed immodest. Most Hasidic women also shave their heads after marriage. The new campaign urges women to replace their wigs with a different head covering and “proudly look like Jewish Queens.”

The ad is unsigned, but it lists a phone number to a recorded message about making a short term sacrifice to please God. The recorded message says the campaign is in accordance with rabbinic calls for women to increase their modesty.

Following the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, the issue of women’s modesty has come up often in Haredi media, suggesting the attacks were caused by women's inadequate adherence to modesty laws and customs.

Just last week, an ad in a different Haredi magazine called on shops to stop selling immodest clothing and wigs, comparing it to a kosher butcher shop selling treif, or non-kosher, meat. The ad was unsigned but said it was placed in memory of the Oct. 7 victims.

Gershon Selinger, a self-confessed child molester who was interviewed on a podcast in July by a popular Haredi comedian, has entered a plea deal with the Dutchess County Court on Wednesday related to charges that surfaced following the podcast interview, the JTA reported.

Selinger will be sentenced in March and serve five years in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release. This is his second conviction. In 2015, Selinger was arrested for a separate offense, and he avoided prison time by attending an in-patient therapy program.

In July, Shtetl reported on the interview, which Selinger gave to Chabad comedian Mendy Pellin, in which he described in graphic detail some of the abuse he had committed, both as a minor himself and as a married adult. In one instance, he described being angry with his wife during a visit with family friends, so he molested a young member of that family while pretending to play with her.

In the interview, Selinger traced his uncontrollable urges to the first time he visited a mikvah at around age three.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, addressing the new charges and the plea deal, Pellin revealed that the victim decided to come forward after seeing the interview:

“When she came across my interview with Gershon - she started shaking uncontrollably. Her body never forgot. The pain was too great. The details described by Gershon lit a spark that brought back her traumatic memories. He was talking about her! It also gave her the courage, after all these years, to take action.

“After processing what she saw she called me to express gratitude. She also let me know that she went to the police to press charges against her abuser: Gershon Selinger.

“Today, Gershon Selinger was arrested and charged with additional child sexual abuse charges as a result of incriminating himself in his interview with me.”

Jacob Daskal, the founder and former head of Boro Park Shomrim, recently began his 17 and a half year prison sentence for sexually abusing a minor. 

In July 2023, Daskal pleaded guilty to the charge of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and he received a sentence of 210 months. According to the US Attorney’s Office, Daskal “used his position of power to inflict serious mental, emotional and physical harm on a vulnerable underaged victim.” 

According to the charges, in the Spring of 2017, Daskal, in his capacity as a Shomrim member, was introduced to the 15-year-old girl who was having trouble with her family. He took her into his home and began grooming her and then sexually abusing her over a period of a few months.

Daskal is 64 years old, and if he serves the full prison term won’t be released until after he is 80 years old.

Agudath Israel is holding its annual “Yeshiva Summit” today at a hotel conference center on Staten Island.

Promotional materials for the gathering said, “Walk-ins are welcome at the event,” but a Shtetl reporter was denied entry. 

The summit brings together yeshiva leaders, vendors, government officials, and other stakeholders. The agenda this year prominently includes substantial equivalency, LSA reviews, and a “litigation update.”

As Shtetl previously reported, Agudath Israel has led the battle against education reform in non-public schools after the state began to revise regulations to ensure non-public schools, including yeshivas, comply with the law requiring non-public schools to provide an education that is “at least substantially equivalent” to that of public schools.

Outside the venue, a small group of Hasidic protesters held up signs accusing Agudath Israel of selling out yeshiva students in exchange for funding.

In recent weeks, Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, leader of one of the major Satmar factions, insisted that yeshivas should not accept a compromise and shouldn’t respond to official government demands for choosing a pathway toward substantial equivalency.