What are they, meshuggeneh?
As part of its controversial plan to annex 507 acres of land upstate, the ultra-Orthodox village of Kiryas Joel commissioned a map highlighting “Hasidic Jewish landowners” surrounding the town — a move that angry sect members have compared to Hitler’s record-keeping.
“It reminds all of us of the 1940s, when the Nazis did exactly this — an account of every Jew, and their businesses,” said one source who grew up in the Orange County village founded in the 1970s by the Satmar Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum.
“Why do they need to know who’s a Hasidic Jew and who’s not? Why does it matter?”
The map was posted this month on the Orange County Web site. Residents whose homes fell within areas identified as “Hasidic” recoiled — particularly in light of the village’s powder-keg land-grab petition, which came last December when 141 property owners in Kiryas Joel submitted their request to annex land from the surrounding town of Monroe.
The landowners claim the move is needed to accommodate the insular village’s exploding population and presumably crafted the map to better understand “where the Jewish properties are, so that it should help them decide what to annex,” a source said.
Opponents in Monroe argue that a land grab will ruin their quality of life and lower property values.
“Most of us bought our homes here because of the rural character, but this would immediately result in high-density development and a tremendous strain on our natural resources,” said Emily Convers, chair of the opposition group United Monroe.
Chaim Rolnitzky, a Monroe resident and member of the Satmar sect, blasted the map.
“My reaction was disbelief and concern,” he recalled.
Rolnitzky, 39, contacted the Lower Hudson Valley chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union about the map.
“I’m scared for my family,” he wrote in a May 7 letter, explaining he feared that his family could be a target for those opposed to the expansion.
“I and thousands of other landowners are being victimized for their ethnic background,” he said. “Unfortunately, my property was included in the annexation request without my permission, but having my house identified by the owners’ alleged religion is something that is reminiscent of segregationist South.”
Annexation opponents were also baffled.
“Is this like, ‘We own everything, you may as well give up now?’ ” said Convers, who noted the annexation could bring up to 40,000 new residents to the village of 22,000.
By May 8, the map was removed from the Orange County site. Officials there “did not think the labeling was appropriate,” county spokesman Dain Pascocello explained.
He said the county had posted the map to “ensure as much information as possible about the proposed annexation would be made publicly available.
“Kiryas Joel created the map and sent it to us as part of its initial contribution to that effort,” Pascocello said.
Information about the religion of landowners came from the village, which commissioned the map, according to James Feury, a managing partner with AFR Engineering and Land Survey, which created the map.
“We would have acquired that information from our client,” he said.
Kiryas Joel officials did not return calls requesting comment. Steven Barshov, the lawyer for the property owners who submitted the petition, said his clients did not commission the map.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation must decide whether Monroe or Kiryas Joel — where all elected officials are of the Satmar sect — should be granted lead-agency status for a pending environmental review. Both boards at Kiryas Joel and Monroe must approve the annexation measure for it to proceed. If the vote is split, the entity in favor can appeal.
A ruling by the DEC, obligated by state law to settle disputes over lead agency for the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, was expected earlier this month but never arrived.
An agency spokeswoman would only confirm the obvious last week: “No decision has been made, yet.”