זיי האבן געטאן די זעלבע זאך אין קרית יואל, וואו זיי האבן געמאכט התגרות באומות און זיך גערייצט מיט די גוים, דורכ'ן איינרעדן פאר די טאון אף מאנרא, אז זיי בויען אויף א ווארקשאפ אין א בילדינג וואס זיי האבן געקויפט 15 מינוט אוועק פון שטעטל, אבער עכט האבן זיי דארט געמאכט א סקול. די טאון האט זיי אבער ארויסגעווארפן פון דארט ווי הינט.
זיי האבן געקויפט די בילדינג אין א אינדאסטריעל זאון וואו מען טאר נישט בויען קיין סקולס.
א באנדע כעלמער. וואס האבן זיי געמיינט? אז זיי קענען איינרעדן די גוים אז דארט גייט נישט זיין א סקול?
'Workshop' school ruse, town says
By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com Monroe – Gleeful Satmar Hasidim packed an empty warehouse just outside of Kiryas Joel last month to celebrate the start of what they hope will be a new school system.
But the party fizzled yesterday when Monroe officials issued violation notices and said they would seek to shut down what they were told would be a "workshop," not a school.
"We're going to look to do something ASAP," Charles Finnerty, the town code enforcement officer and Planning Board chairman, said yesterday afternoon. "There may be a meeting with the lawyers on Monday."
Finnerty and Building Inspector William Muente visited the former Manhattan Beer Distributors warehouse on Larkin Drive Thursday afternoon and found a school instead of the "workshop" that the Planning Board approved in January.
They also counted more students – or "tradesmen," as the school's lawyer would have it – than allowed on the premises and discovered that work had been done without permits.
Just a few weeks earlier, thousands of Hasidim from one side of the Satmar political divide partied inside what they expect some day to house a religious school, synagogue and wedding hall for families who oppose Kiryas Joel's leaders.
Presiding over the hubbub that Shabbos night was Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, brother and nemesis of Kiryas Joel's head rabbi, Aaron Teitelbaum.
The occasion must have been important since Zalman, the dominant rabbi in Williamsburg, Brooklyn – and Aaron's rival for leadership of the world's largest Hasidic movement – rarely sets foot in or near his brother's upstate domain.
Last May, his followers shelled out $2.7 million for the 54,680-square-foot building, which sits on 11.7 acres on the road leading to Home Depot, Wal-Mart and other stores.
On Jan. 13, the town Planning Board gave Congregation Shari Torah approval for a "workshop for the trade of editing publications" in the building's offices.
No more than 50 people could be there, due to septic limitations. The huge warehouse was to stay empty until the board granted further approvals.
But a worker who identified himself as Judo Weinstock, a 20-year-old manager and nephew of opposition leader Mendel Schwimmer, told the Times Herald-Record on Tuesday that the building housed a school with 80 boys, ages 14 to 16.
He seemed bewildered by the "workshop" deion. He showed a reporter several classrooms with books laid out and a synagogue where a rabbi was addressing the boys.
In the warehouse, workers were closing off loading docks with cinder blocks. Weinstock said the congregation hopes to build 45 classrooms there.
The "workshop" ruse was apparently invented to bypass the town zoning codes, which forbid schools on land zoned for heavy industry without a variance.
Goshen lawyer Alan Lipman, having discovered that the town allows the "performance of a trade" in that zone, told the Planning Board attorney in a Nov. 20 letter that "tradesmen" between the ages of 14 and 18 would be "editing religious publications" on the premises.
Lipman and Kiryas Joel's opposition leaders didn't return calls for comment.
Finnerty said he counted about 80 boys – clearly over the limit – during his visit but was unsure if what he saw was a school or workshop.
Muente didn't share his doubt.
"They've got full-blown schools there," he said.