Pictured Above: Photos taken by Woodbury residents and sent to The Monroe Gazette reveal that Woodbury Democratic Committee member Rhonda Fabbro—who shares a home with Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro—is supporting Make America White Again (MAGA) candidate Brandon Calore in his race for mayor of Woodbury.
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During the September 25, 2025, Village of Woodbury Board meeting, the unelected Village Trustee Rhonda Fabbro, mother of the actually elected Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro, made another unwelcome appearance, looking as if she had just crawled out of an eighteenth-century well. I can say that because at the end of this meeting, after being confronted by Woodbury residents for her asinine comments— which we’ll get to in a moment—Mrs. Fabbro said, “I don’t care if you make fun of me on social media.”
So, here we are.
Mrs. Fabbro, whom we’ve previously reported on, often doesn’t appear in person, preferring to text her son Matthew during Village Board meetings, instructing him on how to vote and what to say according to Village officials and Woodbury residents.
While not a criticism, it’s worth noting that Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro still lives at home with his mother. It is reasonable to question whether he can go against his mother’s commands, given his dependence on her for shelter.
Along with Valerie Hebel, who also frequently spoke in favor of positions taken by Village Trustee James Freiband at this meeting, Rhonda Fabbro is a member of the Woodbury Democratic Committee.
I mention all of this because a significant portion of time at this meeting was spent discussing a local law that would extend Woodbury’s building moratorium for another six months or so. If you live in Woodbury, this moratorium does not impact projects already in development. If you still see a lot of development going on, that’s because these projects were approved before the moratorium was implemented. It’s important to note this, as during this meeting Trustee James Freiband, Valerie Hebel, and others tried to mislead Woodbury residents into thinking there’s plenty of water available, and that’s why the moratorium should be lifted.
We’ll talk more about that in an upcoming edition of the podcast. For now, I want to share Mrs. Fabbro’s chilling and disturbing comments, which utilize a fifty-year-old tactic often deployed across Orange, Rockland, and Sullivan Counties, when the wealthy and well-connected, particularly those in the real estate industry, don’t get what they want.
At 51:47 in the video presented in today’s show notes, Mrs. Fabbro approaches the podium.
Mrs. Fabbro then immediately employs the tried-and-true tactic that State Senator James Skoufis often likes to use, claiming that any concerns raised about the environmental consequences of overdevelopment are “fearmongering.”
Specifically, she said it is “fearmongering when we talk about South Blooming Grove,” a village that, just days before Mrs. Fabbro made this comment, was sued again by Orange County for illegally attempting to annex portions of county-owned Gonzaga Park.
“Village Executive” Joel Stern has tried repeatedly since 2022 to build a road known as the Mangin Bypass.
As we’ve covered extensively, Joel Stern, Isaac Ekstein, and friends in South Blooming Grove have been on an extensive white-collar crime spree since coming into office in early 2021.
Despite this, Mrs. Fabbro continued, stating, “We are not living in South Blooming Grove. We do not have high-density housing in Woodbury.”
While it’s true that Woodbury residents do not live in South Blooming Grove, South Blooming Grove’s unelected officials, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, have been active in meddling with Woodbury elections. This includes Isaac Ekstein allegedly requesting that Mordechai Kellner’s United Jewish Community of Woodbury release flyers and endorsements promoting mayoral candidate Brandon Calore, something that, until a recent change by the Trump Administration, would be illegal for a not-for-profit organization to do.
Mr. Scott Ugell, the disgraced Rockland Justice who failed upward into a no-show $75,000-a-year Village Attorney gig in South Blooming Grove, also donated to Brandon Calore’s campaign.
Mr. Calore is also employed by a company known as CIOFFI, which the Village of Woodbury is currently suing, resulting in an ethics complaint against Calore that is now under investigation by the Orange County Board of Ethics, since the Town of Woodbury does not have an ethics committee, refuses to create one, and last revised its ethics code to allow Supervisor Kathryn Luciani to employ her son at the Animal Shelter.
Mr. Calore is accused of sharing information with CIOFFI by utilizing his position on the Woodbury Town Board. CIOFFI is also currently being sued by Orange County for assisting Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein in clearing part of Gonzaga Park to build the Mangin Bypass.
Whether or not Mr. Calore assisted in that clearing work is unknown. Mr. Calore, despite frequent claims of being honest and transparent, says little during Town Board meetings, declined to answer The Monroe Gazette’s questions about his role with CIOFFI and relations with South Blooming Grove, and laughed off this question when asked by a Town resident.
Mrs. Luciani also assisted in shutting down this discussion by saying it wasn’t Town business.
If it’s not Town business to ask a Town Councilman about allegations that he abused his authority to aid his employer in a lawsuit, then what is?
Back to Rhonda Fabbro …
At 52:25, Mrs. Fabbro stated, “I don’t know why the residents who come to these meetings think that the Board is going to vote for high-density housing or vote against our water moratorium if it’s needed.”
Here, we want to point out that Village Trustee James Freiband voted against continuing the building moratorium mere moments later, and that both Mrs. Fabbro’s son and James Freiband voted against granting the Village of Woodbury lead agency status in discussions involving the annexation of ACE Farm into neighboring Kiryas Joel—a project that would absolutely involve high-density housing that would impact roads, local infrastructure, and water availability for Woodbury residents.
Mr. Freiband and Mr. Fabbro, despite voting against lead agency status for the Village of Woodbury concerning ACE Farms, are now trying to mislead Woodbury voters by running on a third-party ballot line called “No Annexations,” which is not only a deceptive fraud but also demonstrates the utter contempt and disregard that State Senator Skoufis and his friends on the Democratic Committee of Woodbury have for Woodbury residents. They think you’re stupid.
Mrs. Fabbro, like her son throughout this meeting, as well as Mr. Freiband and Mrs. Valerie Hebel, demonstrated a willingness to deceive and bamboozle Woodbury residents on behalf of the wealthy and well-connected they serve. Don’t forget that last year, Mrs. Rhonda Fabbro was supporting Tyler Etzel Jr. and John U. Keleman, two men working on behalf of wealthy real estate developer Wayne Corts to put condominiums on the Falkirk Golf Course.
Mrs. Fabbro concluded her remarks by stating, “I don’t like the finger-pointing,” which I guess means she doesn’t like being held accountable for her actions and statements. This makes sense, given that Mrs. Fabbro is best friends with Woodbury Public Library Board President Cathy Schmidt, a woman we’ve reported on who has had multiple violent outbursts, none of which she will apologize for, and has enjoyed relative impunity as the other Woodbury Public Library Board members, including Vice President Ellie Pastel—who frequently posts in Facebook groups praising libraries—have ignored not one, not two, not three, but four requests by Woodbury residents to investigate Mrs. Schmidt’s behavior.
Pictured Above: Excerpts of FOILed legal invoices sent to the Woodbury Public Library on behalf of Whiteman Osterman & Hannah LLP to investigate claims of harassment involving Woodbury Public Library Board President—and Rhonda Fabbro’s BFF—Cathy Schmidt. Despite numerous documented complaints about Mrs. Schmidt’s violent outbursts and behavior, the Woodbury Public Library Board and the Town of Woodbury have taken no action nor investigated Mrs. Schmidt. The public did not know this incident involved Martha Lopez until Mrs. Schmidt herself violated yet another Trustee Ethics Statement by outing Mrs. Lopez in a Facebook thread.
(Mrs. Pastel’s husband, Michael Pastel, heads the Friends of the Library non-profit and has refused multiple requests by The Monroe Gazette to provide the taxpayer identification number of this non-profit and any of its Form 990s, something all registered non-profits must do under federal law. Mr. Pastel was recently referred to the IRS over this matter. While we can and should support our public libraries, that does not mean we must support bad behavior by Board Presidents, their Boards, and associated family members.
We need strong libraries and accountable people to run them, not whatever is going on in Woodbury, which is why you should not vote for any increases in the Woodbury Public Library budget until Mrs. Cathy Schmidt resigns her position.
Fabbro went on to say, “I don’t like the insinuations, and I think it’s anti-Semitic when we bring up South Blooming Grove,” eliciting a groan from the crowd. She then waddled back to her seat.
At no point did her son address his mother’s comments directly, nor did he apologize to the Woodbury residents whom his mother just labeled anti-Semites. Instead, in Part 2 of the video at 1:09:30, Mr. Fabbro said, “Let’s try to keep the temperatures cool over the next couple of months. [...] Let’s not let it get personal.”
Again, Matthew Fabbro did not call out his mother, who was the only one to accuse everyone in the room of being anti-Semitic. Instead, Mr. Fabbro, like his mother, Hebel, and Freiband, spent the meeting gaslighting Woodbury residents and criticizing what he perceived as political commentary at the podium. While multiple candidates running for office spoke at the Village Board meeting, all of them were professional and respectful; Mrs. Rhonda Fabbro was not.
This Week’s Bible Lesson
I’m kidding. We don’t do Bible lessons here at The Monroe Gazette.
However, we have taken the time over the last two years to point out the over use of accusations of anti-Semitism when the wealthy and well-connected real estate developers don’t get what they want.
(See: Joel Stern’s pal, Moche Halpern, suing the Village of Washingtonville, represented by Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP, the law firm that Woodbury Public Library Board President Cathy Schmidt spent thousands of Woodbury taxpayer dollars on to defend herself after she was called out for harassing former Library Board Trustee Martha Lopez.)
We’ve also discussed the weaponization of claims of anti-Semitism by bad actors in both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Biden was the first to label any criticism of Israel’s ongoing actions in Gaza, or the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, as “anti-Semitic.”
Under Trump, “anti-Semitism” was used as a pretext to strip billions of dollars in funding from colleges and universities across the country—funding that, by the way, supported research on vaccinations and treatments for cancer. So don’t buy into this notion that these colleges were “woke.” Remember that when you hear or see some Make America White Again (MAGA) fool use the term “woke,” it is often a coded word for n***er.
(Speaking of that word, while not the subject of today’s story, we’ve received multiple reports of mayoral candidate Brandon Calore demanding a Black teenager be removed from his property while the teenager was going door-to-door to raise funds for a school-related activity. Mr. Calore allegedly told the mother accompanying the teenager and his friend, “Get that n***er off my lawn.” I’m not exaggerating when I say that the MAGA crowd doesn’t stand for anything beyond white supremacy. Mr. Calore has also never answered questions regarding whether he is a member of the local Proud Boys chapter.)
What I want to do, briefly, is highlight some teachings from the Torah and Talmud, to demonstrate why Mrs. Fabbro’s comments are not only wrong but also insulting to Jews like me and antithetical to what Jewish religion and culture represent.
I don’t know if there are any non-Satmar synagogues left in Woodbury, but if there are, they should ask Mrs. Fabbro to issue a formal apology to the Jewish community. Her comments were ignorant and insulting; by making a specious claim of anti-Semitism to disguise the ongoing white-collar crime spree in South Blooming Grove, she committed an actual act of anti-Semitism.
Such ignorance should not go unaddressed.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Jewish law, as outlined in the Torah and the Talmud, here’s why I say this:
-My fellow Jews and I are admonished to say little and do much. Therefore, getting up and making ignorant, self-serving public comments to cover up the crimes of local real estate developers (Ziggy Brach, Joel Stern, Isaac Ekstein, and others) is antithetical to what the Talmud teaches us.
As Jews, we are told we are here to do good and to battle evil. Evil is genocide, like what you see happening in Gaza. But evil is also defined as putting financial interests ahead of the health and safety of community members regarding their water supply.
Without water, there is no life, and we, as Jews, are taught that our most important responsibility is the preservation of all life. No water means no life. Claiming that there’s “plenty of water,” as James Freiband did and as Mrs. Fabbro implies, is misguided when, in reality, there isn’t enough water for Woodbury residents. Not long after Mrs. Fabbro made her statements, a drought warning was issued.
As stated by the Fire Chief, there may not be sufficient water to protect Woodbury residents in the event of a devastating forest fire, such as the Jennings Creek Fire that occurred last year in nearby Greenwood Lake.
Rabbis specifically, of whom Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein both claim to be—basically every male in the Satmar community, particularly in Hanhalla (leadership), is a rabbi—are obligated to fight for righteousness and noble causes. What is happening in South Blooming Grove, where non-Jews are treated with contempt, where neither Satmar nor non-Satmar residents have access to adequate water, where multiple instances of infrastructure failures are under investigation by the EPA and DEC, and where Isaac Ekstein remains under active FBI investigation for potential voter fraud—this is not righteousness.
Pictured Above: Concerned Woodbury residents and South Blooming Grove can read the full letter from Orange County’s Department of Health here.
What it IS is a mirror, demonstrating the same contempt for humanity that you see perpetrated by Netanyahu in Israel, whose unpopular government coalition is dependent on the Haredi to remain in power.
That is why, when I’m asked, “Can’t we just negotiate with Hanhalla?” I always say no. Hanhalla will only do what is best for them, not for their own people, and certainly not for anyone considered “goyim.” Just ask the people living in Gaza.
How can I say that? Because the Torah and the Talmud command all Jews to call out Bad Jews whenever we see them in the wild. They may make us look bad, but more importantly, whether you are Satmar or not, Bad Jews put all of us in danger. Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein have allowed anti-Semitism, real anti-Semitism, to flourish in Blooming Grove and the larger Southern Orange County community specifically through their illegal actions.
Pictured Above: Orange County Executive, Steve Nuehuas, with Joel Stern (left) and Isaac Ekstein (right.) Allegedly, this photo was taken by County Attorney, Rick Golden, whom the four were said to have enjoyed “cigars on the mountain” together after Stern told Neuhaus about his plans to put a road through Gonzaga Park. Rick Golden has denied he was up on the mountain when asked by The Monroe Gazette.
This is compounded by the repeated failure of Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus, Orange County District Attorney Hoovler, Congressman Pat Ryan, State Senator Skoufis, Assemblyman Brian Maher, Orange County Legislator Bonnelli, Attorney General Letitia James, and Governor Kathy Hochul to take any action against both men.
One final point here: As Joel Teitelbaum said himself before moving his congregation to Monroe from both Brooklyn and Lakewood, New Jersey, “The law of the land is the law.” Neither of his nephews, who control the Satmar religious dynasty, follow this law, but it is commanded to all Jews that we do so. If the Village of Woodbury says there is no water, it is not within our purview to ignore that. If the Village of South Blooming Grove wants to violate law after law, it not only defies New York State law, but it also contradicts what we are commanded to do by our elders and God.
It is not fearmongering to call out what Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein are doing in South Blooming Grove.
It is not anti-Semitic to call them out. It is our duty and obligation as Jews, and as non-Jews concerned about the preservation of all life, to do so.
It is anti-Semitic to twist and manipulate a culture and religion that Mrs. Fabbro appears completely ignorant of, in order to further the financial interests of a few real estate developers at the expense of her friends and neighbors.
This behavior is unacceptable, and she should be called out by every member of this community for participating in this repeated attempt at gaslighting.
I once again urge registered Democrats in Woodbury to rise up and take back their Democratic Committee, liberating it from these disgusting, ignorant people (the Freibands, the Fabbros, Etzel, Keleman, etc.).
