By Ezra Ratner
I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, consuming my daily dose of brain rot, when I came across a video from Jewish Breaking News. In the clip, taken from a podcast, three Muslim men discuss their plan to buy a tract of land in Texas and establish what would effectively be a Muslim-only community. Their strategy? Funnel fees from the Homeowner Association through the local mosque, discouraging Christians – who presumably wouldn’t want to fund a Muslim institution – from moving in. The streets are going to be named after famous Muslim conquerors, they said.
The headline screamed, “WATCH: Muslims Discuss Sharia-Inspired ‘Only-Muslims Allowed’ City in Texas.” In the comments, viewers tagged politicians – everyone from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to President Donald Trump to Governor of Texas Greg Abbott – begging them to intervene:
“@secrubio put a stop to this now!!”
“This proves Muslims do not assimilate the local culture and values but always seek to be separatist. Must be stopped!”
“Never going to happen. You will get run out of Texas—and we will make sure of it.”
Clearly, there were a lot of very frightened people in the comments section. And honestly, I get it. How is it possible that in the United States of America, a religious group is allowed to form its own town, name the streets after its religious heroes, funnel communal funds through religious institutions and make sure no outsiders move in? If this happened in my community, I’d be outraged. I’d write letters. I’d protest. Shame on you, Texas!
Of course, if you haven’t picked up on what I feel is my thinly veiled sarcasm, I find this reaction not only laughable and outrageous, but so hypocritical it borders on satire.
I live in Rockland County, better known in the frum world as “Monsey.” Technically, Monsey is just one town within the county, but in the Yiddishe velt (Jewish world), the whole area is colloquially known by that name. Monsey is known for its high concentration of Hasidic Jews, and Rockland has the highest per-capita Jewish population of any U.S. county – just over 31%. While Monsey itself is a major center of Orthodox life, I want to shift your attention to a neighboring village in Rockland County: New Square.
New Square was established in 1954 when the Skver Hasidic community, mostly living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, felt threatened by assimilation. They purchased a 130-acre dairy farm to establish the town of New Skvir, named after the Ukrainian town of Skvira, where the Skver Hasidim originate. The property was located in the town of Ramapo, but the town’s zoning laws impeded the new development’s growth. Multi-family homes weren’t allowed, so multiple families shared what they called a single-family home and claimed to all be related. The town of Ramapo eventually requested that the entire community be condemned for building code violations. The Skver community responded by requesting incorporation as its own village, which was granted in 1961 after the New York State Supreme Court ruled in their favor.
New Square, expressly founded to be an all-Skver community, operates under de jure laws that are similar to the surrounding towns. But it also has de facto laws, decided by the community Beis Din (religious court) and enforced by the community. For example, any law in the United States stating that women not be allowed to drive would obviously be challenged and quickly reversed by a court. However, in 2005, the Skver Beis Din decreed that women should not drive, and as a result, women who live there do not drive.
Adherence to these decrees isn’t voluntary – any divergence from communal norms is punished severely. In 2011, New Square resident Aron Rottenberg was the victim of a series of horrifying acts of violence by members of his own community. His car windows were smashed, his daughter’s desk and school books were dumped on his doorstep and his wife was warned that they should move out of New Square. The attacks culminated in Rottenberg being severely burned in an arson attack by a perpetrator who had intended to burn down his house with him and his family inside. Rottenberg’s crime? He and a group of friends chose to pray at a nearby nursing home instead of at the community’s synagogue. The Skver Beis Din had decreed that praying outside the community synagogue was a major violation of communal rules.
If a man in Palestine were doused in gasoline and set ablaze for not praying in the “right” mosque, the headlines would use words like “barbaric,” “horrifying” and “brutal.” And those words would be justified. That act – just like the one in New Square – would be barbaric, horrifying and brutal.
North of Rockland is Orange County, where the town of Kiryas Joel can be found. Much like New Square, Kiryas Joel was founded to escape the influences of the outside world while still being close to New York City’s commercial opportunities. Commonly called KJ, the town founded by the Satmar Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum also has its own government, which was formed when it separated from the town of Monroe.
Kiryas Joel and New Square are filled with signs in both Yiddish and English to ensure that everyone knows what the rules are. While they aren’t laws in the American legal sense, these rules are enforced. These rules, legislated by the Beis Din instead of a court, are not beholden to the corpus of Constitutional law. Everyone in the town is expected to abide by these rules, regardless of whether they are residents, visitors, or employees of local businesses. The welcome sign to Kiryas Joel, in both English and Spanish, asks visitors to dress modestly and maintain gender separation. In New Square, you’ll find metal signs on every telephone pole delineating which side of the street is for men and which is for women.
I can cite my own experiences in the town of New Square. When I visited for Shabbos, I was handed a stack of business-card-sized cartoons by one of the children of my hosts. The cards each depicted a scene where the character, distracted by his cellphone, made mistakes ranging from wrongly fixing a leaky pipe to missing his flight on eagle’s wings when Moshiach comes.
I remember the glares I got when I walked into shul wearing a blue suit instead of the customary black. I remember seeing the women of the family eat on folding chairs in the kitchen while the men got to sit in the dining room. I didn’t see a Jewish Breaking News post about how Skver women aren’t permitted to eat in the same room as the guests. I didn’t see anyone get mad about the looks of ire that were shot my way when I didn’t wear the right outfit. I saw a news post, and the horrific comments that followed it, targeted at a community that not only had nothing to do with Jews, but actively emulates some of our own.
I wonder then, what could a hypothetical, effectively Muslim-only community do to its residents that hasn’t already happened in one of the effectively Jewish-only communities that are already established? Punish people for not dressing modestly? Not allow women to drive? Light people on fire for not following the rules? It should be exceedingly clear that forcing anyone to follow religious law, and punishing those who don’t, is not only un-American but illegal. We are terrified of Sharia but allow the most extreme interpretations of halacha in the Jewish world, even when the outcomes are the same. If you’re going to be outraged at a concept, keep your outrage consistent.
The hypocrisy pervading the Jewish community at first seems funny and nonsensical, but then it seems scary. How blind do we have to be to defend Jews who isolate themselves in towns where they can follow their own religious laws – halacha instead of Sharia – but then turn around and appeal to politicians to crack down on Muslims who wish to do the same? We’re fine with Jews who can live on Mezritch Road, in between Apta Blvd. and Polonya Road, as they can in New Square. So why is it so outrageous that a Muslim wants to do the same?
Do I support an insular Muslim-only community that enforces Sharia law in the United States? No. Do I support an insular Jewish-only community that enforces halachic law in the United States? Also no.
To clarify: If you’re not willing to condemn insular Jewish communities like the ones in New Square and Kiryas Joel, you have no right to condemn Muslims for establishing one of their own; that is not patriotism, it’s prejudice.
Photo Caption: Cartoons cards from New Square
Photo Credit: Ezra Ratner