New Lawsuit Claims Everyone In Washingtonville Is An Antisemite

Once again, the law firm Whiteman, Osterman, and Hanna LLP is representing hanhallah, and reaching into their old bag of tricks in order to win a case against the Village.

So, during our week looking at the local news in Washingtonville, I introduced you to Moche Halpern of Blooming Realty, explained how he was a slumlord, and that his real estate transactions seem a bit odd. Maybe even illegal. (That’s for the FBI to decide, as they are currently reviewing the information provided to them about Mr. Halpern.)

I thought this might be a three part series, but I think we can cover the federal court case in one shot.

So, today, we’re going to do just that.

Next week, I’m going to (try) to pull double duty.

That means one post about what’s going on in Monroe, and then another debunking State Senator Skoufis and State Assemblyman Chris Eachus’s reasons for not supporting legislation to protect and preserve land in Orange County.

Hint: They blame high taxes in one breath while promoting the creation of new taxes with another.

I think their response is kind of bullshit, because the law would simply allow Orange County municipalities to opt-in, should the residents vote in favor of such a tax. It does not automatically create a tax, nor does it create an additional tax burden.

So, if you don’t want it, don’t worry. Don’t vote for it.

This is about giving you the option, which is your right as a property owner in Orange County, to have. Ulster County municipalities have this option. So does the Town of Warwick. The only municipality in Orange County with the ability to have such a tax.

Why don’t you?

I’ll give you a hint: It has nothing to do with your tax burden.

It has everything to do with New York State’s incredibly powerful real estate lobby, which State Senator Skoufis is beholden to.

Also, if we’re looking to free up money for preservation, here’s an idea: I think we should cut all the funding that goes to non-public schools, so that people who want to bus their kids to a private school (for example) should pay for it themselves. If you want to send your kids to a public school, I have no problem paying for that because I know it’s a net good for humanity.

But if you want to opt-out of that public school system? You’re on your own.

You and I can argue about that one later.

Let’s get to Mr. Halpern’s lawsuit against Washingtonville, where he has hanhallah’s attorney of choice accuse the entire village of being antisemitic.

Whiteman, Osterman, and Hanna LLP

Since the ‘90s, this firm represents the interests of Rebbe Aaron Teitelbaum. Most recently, you may have seen this law firm ask the Town and Village of Woodbury to provide Kiryas Joel tax relief using a dubious argument.

They said municipalities in New York grant tax exemptions when a neighboring municipality owns water distribution facilities within another municipality. When asked by The Monroe Gazette to provide examples of this exemption, the law firm declined to provide one.

Former Woodbury Trustee, Christopher Graziano, pointed out — having worked with numerous municipalities throughout New York State for water distribution — that no such exemption has been made anywhere in the state to his knowledge.

Amazingly, the law firm didn’t claim antisemitism when their request was rejected. Because if there’s one thing this law firm seems to be good at it, it’s labelling everyone who opposes hanhallah as an antisemite.

Maybe they should watch the man who wrote the modern definition of antisemitism explain that, when everything is antisemitism, nothing is.

You may have also heard one of this firm’s attorneys, Robert Rosborough, claim antisemitism as the root cause for people’s opposition to Keen Equities’s Clovewood Development during the April DEC call. During that first 3pm call, which ran nearly three hours, he was the ONLY PERSON TO CLAIM THIS.

I don’t really know what more I can say about this law firm without opening myself up to a libel suit.

What I can say, based on the facts and their history over the last 30 years, is that when you see this law firm appear in Orange County, it’s usually to do the bidding of hanhallah.

And you can fully expect that their attorneys will claim everyone and everything is antisemitic, in order to get what they want.

This is done regardless of the harmful consequences that exist from the literal abuse and misuse of this term by this firm and their clients.

If anyone should sue anyone, it’s me, suing them for eroding the power of the term “antisemitism” and making it commonplace. So much so that, when we hear antisemitism now, we just tune it out and ignore the danger.

Today, I’m going to show you just the latest example of this firm (and their clients) use and abuse of this term.

The case is known as 61 EAST MAIN STREET ASSOCIATES, LLC, MOCHE HALPERN v. THE VILLAGE OF WASHINGTONVILLE, THOMAS DEVINKO, in his official and individual capacity, DONNA JACARUSO, in her official and individual capacity, SUSAN WALSKI, in her official and individual capacity, STEVE PRESSER, in his official and individual capacity, and VERNON COLEMAN, in his official and individual capacity.

And once again, Mr. Robert Rosborough is claiming everyone, this time in Washingtonville, is an antisemite because his client didn’t get what he wanted.

Oy vey.

Moche Halpern’s Complaint

You can read the full 36 page complaint here.

I truly wished Mr. Rosborough had just focused on the actions of Washingtonville’s Village Board and Village Planning Board and spared the court the bullshit histrionics.

There may be a legitimate case to be had concerning the actions of the Village Planning Board. There may not be. I am in the process of gathering additional facts from the Village via FOIL. So, yes, it’s entirely possible the Village dealt with Mr. Halpern in bad faith. I don’t know. I don’t have all the facts yet.

BUT.

It is ALSO true that Mr. Halpern is a slumlord, and he may be participating in a questionably legal real estate scheme, in which this specific property is part of.

If that’s true, then what we have here is a criminal, suing a small village in upstate New York, in order to further enrich himself at the expense of everyone living here, haredi and non-haredi alike.

Let’s Talk About Some of This Bullshit

I’m not going to break down all 36 pages of this thing. I’m just going to give you some of the highlights.That’s because much of this complaint is the standard, “My client didn’t get what he wanted, so he’s going to claim antisemitism” bullshit that’s prevalent in Orange, Sullivan, and Rockland county.

So, really, I want to show you the most egregious examples from this complaint. Starting with … Hypocrisy.

“The Fair Housing Act prohibits municipalities from making housing unavailable to anyone based on their religion.”

This was really funny to me, because the lawsuit later claims that the housing was meant to be provided to “Orthodox Jews and the Orthodox Jewish Community.”

What’s not said, and what has been well established factually over the last fifty years in Brooklyn, Orange County, Sullivan County, Rockland County, and Lakewood, New Jersey, is that non-haredi are often discriminated against when attempting to purchase homes or rent apartments in many of these buildings.

Why?

Because they’re not haredi. That’s discrimination based on religion.

So, this argument cuts both ways, and any good lawyer can (and should) use his words against him here.

Then, Mr. Rosborough quotes Letitia James, but as Monroe Gazette readers know, Letitia James is in the pocket of hanhallah.

She is not an unbiased source, and her claims are not credible when speaking specifically about this community based on her previous actions.

Find someone else to quote, Mr. Rosborough.

“The Village of Washingtonville (the “Village”), like other municipalities in Orange County, is engaged in a long-standing campaign to exclude or substantially limit the Orthodox Jewish community from seeking housing in the Village, in violation of the Fair Housing Act.”

A couple of points here:

1. Prove it. If Washingtonville has a long standing history of antisemitism, prove it. I’m not doing to disagree with you here. Maybe it does. But you need to prove it. Show me documented instances in the local media or elsewhere that show me or anyone reading this that Washingtonville (specifically) has a long history of discrimination against the Orthodox Jewish Community.

2. Hanhallah’s attorney is conflating Orthodox Jewish community with Satmar, and they are VERY different.

This is sort of like me saying bananas are the same as blueberries.

Yes. They’re both fruit.

But that’s where the similarities end.

There are degrees to Judaism. It looks like this, if you’ll forgive these very brief and slightly comedic generalizations …

-Reform. That’s me. I smoke weed, eat pork, and don’t go to Temple unless someone dies.

-Conservative. That’s my aunt and grandparents. They keep Kosher. They go to temple. They’re involved with the temple’s activities. They definitely fast on Yom Kippur, and they keep the Sabbath (unless they’re going to Atlantic City to gamble.)

-Orthodox. My great grandparents. Orthodox are like conservatives, there are many different varieties and types, but they can (usually) be found wearing specific types of Biblically-compliant clothing (white shirt, black pants, yarmulke for men, for example) and likely attend temple way more often than the other groups mentioned so far.

But.

And this is a huge but.

Orthodox Jews have no problem living, working, and thriving in the land of the Goy.

That is why Mr. Mr. Rosborough’s constant conflation between the Orthodox and the Haredi is so offensive to me.

Because …

-Haredi. Haredi, like Orthodox, have many, many subsets. There are at least 30 different kinds of Haredi, for example. Most (not all!) Haredi tend to prefer to limit their interactions with outsiders for a variety of reasons.

Certain groups within the haredi, such as the Satmar, are often hostile to outsiders and would prefer to (in some cases, literally) to wall themselves off from the outside world.

That’s the reason Kiryas Joel exists in the first place.

Joel Teitelbaum thought there were too many points of intersection with the outside world in Brooklyn that could cause his followers to become less stringent in following his teachings.

Do not let people like Mr. Rosborough continue to make this conflation. It’s misleading and offensive.

“Orange County and the Village have a significant shortage of available housing that could serve the needs of the Orthodox Jewish community.”

Again. Not true.

What is true is that Orange County, like the rest of New York, has a housing shortage that affects everyone. We’ll circle back to this point.

“Plaintiffs are residential housing developers, who are members of the Orthodox Jewish faith, and sought to develop multi-unit housing in the Village, available to anyone willing to rent them.” (emphasis added)

I’d love to see them prove this point.

Any attorney dealing with hanhallah should ask for substantial evidence to prove that these apartments and other homes being put up by Satmar developers are rented out to anyone willing to rent them.

Otherwise, this claim should be rejected.

“Plaintiffs have gone through appeals with the Zoning Board of Appeals as well regarding their 61 East Main Street in the Village since at least 2018. Over the course of the next five years, Plaintiffs jumped through every hoop that the Defendants presented them with, incurring significant expense to answer any questions raised by the Defendants or residents of the Village.”

This is interesting, because the lawsuit is filed on behalf of Moche Halpern and 61 Main Street Associates, not 12 Dallas Drive and Leiser Schwimmer, who owned the property in 2018.

Technically speaking, Mr. Halpern and friends didn’t own the building until June 5th, 2019.

Not only that, but had Mr. Halpern not changed the plans initially submitted to the Washingtonville Planning Board and not tried to obfuscate the process, he wouldn’t have incurred that “significant expense” in the first place. This obfuscation and change by Mr. Halpern is detailed in the following video:

“Over the course of the five years that the Village left Plaintiffs’ application pending the Village received significant outcry from its residents of an anti-Semitic nature, seeking to prevent Plaintiffs, members of the Orthodox Jewish community, from developing necessary multi- family housing in the Village.”

Again, not Orthodox.

Haredi.

Also, I kind of wish the attorney for Washingtonville would just stipulate that there are antisemites everywhere.

Yes. We have them here. Yes. They suck. Yes, they make it so much easier for hanhallah and their machers to get what they want.

But.

Just like there are criminals in the Satmar community (see: Isaac Ekstein and Joel Stern), that does not mean all Satmar are criminals.

Similarly, just like there are absolutely antisemites living in Washingtonville, that does not — and should not — be taken to mean that all people who live there are antisemitic.

“In 2020, the Village brought litigation against Plaintiffs regarding their Property at 61 East Main Street, which resulted in a September 22, 2020 stipulation, entered into by Plaintiffs and Defendants requiring the Planning Board to issue a determination as to the site plan in good faith and in a timely fashion.”

We’ve covered this earlier in the week.

What the attorney for hanhallah downplayed here is that his client. Mr. Moche Halpen, was operating a dangerous and illegal boarding house which created hazardous conditions for its residents — resulting in at least one lawsuit thus far against Mr. Halpen — and for the local fire fighters and EMS should they need to respond to an emergency there.

“During this time, the Planning Board received significant anti-Semitic commentary from the residents of the Village.”

There’s no proof of this, of course. Just screen shots of Facebook comments, which I’ve pointed out numerous times here on the Gazette, are not reflective of everyone in the community, and you have to prove that those comments came from actual people and not trolls, bots, or Russian Hackers.

Hanhallah’s attorney did not do this.

If you go to court presenting Facebook comments, you better validate them, otherwise it’s piss poor evidence to present and can be tossed if the attorney is aware of how easy these are to fake.

Also, there’s a conflation here — yes, another misleading one — that tries to twist people’s understandable environmental concerns into some perceived form of antisemitism.

The planet is on fire. Wanting to put that fire out is not antisemitic. It’s actually a fundamental precept of Judaism to put the preservation of all life at the front and center of your decision making. This is true regardless of how you practice your faith.

It’s also not antisemitic to raise concerns about the situation in East Ramapo with the school district. Especially because certain machers, like this guy, have explicitly threatened to do the same thing to communities that don’t give hanhallah what it wants.

You can’t simultaneously threaten communities with the same thing they are rightly calling out as wrong, and then claim that criticism is antisemtic.

Ditto with people raising concern about Kiryas Joel. Kiryas Joel is a theocracy. There is a proven and verifiable history of incidents involving haredi who don’t want to go along with hanhallah’s program.

There are also public incidents of corruption, like this one, that happen in Kiryas Joel and is met with a total lack of transparency. You can, and should, criticize this sort of behavior. It’s not antisemitic to do so.

“The Village caved to its residents’ anti-Semitism despite an overwhelmingly obvious need for multi-family, multi-unit housing in the Village, as described by the Village itself, Orange County, and Governor Hochul speaking on behalf of the entire state of New York, which is facing an insurmountable housing crisis.” (Emphasis added.)

“Governor Hochul’s mandate also requires “Downstate municipalities served by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority where the housing need is most acute, including New York City, will have a three percent new homes target over three years.” Id. (emphasis supplied).”

Orange County is barely served by the MTA and requires nearly $300M to bring the Port Jervis line (operated in conjunction with New Jersey Transit) to turn it into a daily and reliable source of mass transit. (As it stands, we can’t even get a train station at Woodbury Commons which would contribute to congestion relief on the area’s roads.)

So, the above statement is, yet again, VERY misleading. We are not served by the MTA and won’t be until there’s frequent, reliable, and regular daily train service.

So, about the housing …

There is an obvious need for multi-unit, multi-family housing in New York. But there is nothing, anywhere, to suggest that it’s needed here in Washingtonville.

As I’ve stressed, again, numerous times, what needs to happen is for all the municipalities to get together — INCLUDING PALM TREE — and figure out where they can put that housing in such a way that’s economically and environmentally sound.

Yes. Let’s build.

But let’s build together so that we can make sure there’s enough infrastructure and resources to support that growth.

The thing is … Hanhallah doesn’t want that.

They want housing just for their followers, which discriminates against the rest of Orange, Rockland, and Sullivan county residents on the basis of religion.

So, what’s really happening here is that hanhallah is using the housing crisis as an excuse to get what they want, while not really solving the problem at all.

Remember that and write that down.

Because I bet you everywhere there’s a case involving hanhallah in New York, this argument is being made, and it should be rejected.

“This is just the latest action by Defendants that has violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights and violated the precepts of the United States and New York Constitutions barring religious discrimination.”

Is there a constitutional right to prevent harm by municipal governments? Because there is a reasonable impression to be had that Moche Halpern is a danger to his tenants, whether they be haredi or not.

We’ll find out if the Court agrees soon.