South Blooming Grove's Joel Stern Demands Convicted Pedophile Go Free

A controversial letter circulating in the Haredi community has a couple of familiar signatories here in Southern Orange County and Northern Rockland schvitzing their pants.

Let’s take a trip back to May of 2009.

Samuel “Mendy” Israel, aka Schmuel “Mendy” Israel, took an Agudath Israel-sponsored trip to Albany. If Agudath Israel sounds familiar, it’s the same organization that lobbied New York State Governor Kathy Hochul — on behalf of Joel Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein — to kill the land preservation bill in Blooming Grove. Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Director of New York Government Relations for Agudath Israel of America, wrote at the time:

‘A recent attempt to keep Jews out of an area has been festering in the Town of Blooming Grove in Orange County, whose officials wanted to establish a real estate transfer tax for collecting revenue that would be utilized to preserve agricultural land and parks --- read prevent Jewish home developers from building housing in the Town.’

Mr. Silber never backed up this assertion with any facts. (And by the way, he is also a signatory on the letter I will share with you. So, the next time Mr. Silber comes to our neck of t…