BLOCKBUSTING AND BLOOMINGBURG, NEW YORK

Blockbusting, LAUNCHING an American Shtetl…

LostMessiah, March 11, 2016

Blockbusting has been an issue of concern in towns and counties up the Eastern seaboard, more recently focused on throughout the Tri-State region. It has been going on for years. Despite community and political efforts by towns, counties, legislators and Senators to curb its use, efforts seem to get lost in the abyss of corrupt politics.  Blockbusting is a process whereby real-estate agents badger sellers into selling their homes either through  intimidation or through lies and deceit, convincing sellers that failure to sell will result in a diminution of home values.

It has been a topic of discussion recently as towns and counties within the tri-state region fight the influx of Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox residents, who characteristically send their children to private Yeshivas, thereby taking money from public schools; and it would appear engage in shady zoning practices.

In an interesting article entitled, “How to build an American shtetl — See: Bloomingburg, N.Y.”  by Uriel Helman, dated May 22, 2015 published in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and on their website JTA.org, Helman outlines the Hasidic playbook:

“This is how you launch a Hasidic shtetl in 21st-century America.

1. Step 1. Find a place within reasonable distance of Brooklyn where the land is cheap and underdeveloped.
2. Step 2. Buy as much property as you can in your target area – if possible, without tipping off locals that you plan to turn it into a Hasidic enclave.
3. Step 3. Ensure the zoning is suited to Hasidic living: densely clustered homes big enough for large families and within walking distance of the community’s vital infrastructure.
4. Step 4. Build the infrastructure: Houses, a synagogue and beit midrash study hall, kosher establishments, a mikvah ritual bath. Lay the groundwork for a school. Launch a shuttle service so Hasidim who don’t drive or don’t own cars can get from the new shtetl to shopping outlets and other Hasidic communities in the region.
5. Step 5. Market to the Hasidic community and turn on the lights.”

According the Helman, “That, essentially, is the playbook developer Shalom Lamm is following for what is shaping up to be America’s newest Hasidic shtetl — the town of Bloomingburg in upstate New York.”

Helman continues:

“Lamm didn’t stop there. He bought a group of farms on 200 acres of unincorporated land about half a mile from the stoplight and in 2006 got the village to annex it and rezone it for residential development in exchange for building a new $5 million sewage treatment plant for the area. He bought the airport in the nearby village of Wurtsboro. He bought 635 acres five miles away. He also bought a house for himself in Bloomingburg and moved in (Lamm also lives in West Hempstead, on Long Island).

Soon, changes started happening in the village.”

The article continues:

If Lamm’s vision comes to fruition, there soon will be hundreds more Hasidic families in Bloomingburg – maybe thousands.

At Chestnut Ridge, the newly built 2,800-square-foot attached townhomes look like they’re straight out of a brochure for the American dream, with identical facades, fresh white garages and bright green lawns. Inside, the décor is bright, modern and spacious, with 9-foot ceilings, an upstairs laundry room, and kitchens with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.

The houses also have all the accoutrements Hasidim, with their large families and Orthodox practices, might desire. The kitchens feature two stoves, sinks, ovens and microwaves – one each for dairy and meat. There’s an outdoor sukkah deck just off the dining room. Special sinks are located outside the bathrooms for ritual hand-washing, and a small room near the front is designed for a miniature library or study.

The five bedrooms upstairs have sleeping space for up to a dozen. The master bedroom easily fits two full-sized beds – Hasidic couples do not share beds during women’s menstrual periods and for a week afterward – and the walk-in closet in the master bedroom is big enough for a crib, which Lamm doesn’t doubt Hasidic parents will notice when their babies are born.

The homes are priced between $299,000 and $334,000. Once the remaining 350 or so houses are built, there will also be four playgrounds for the kids.

To read the article in the entirety click, here.

This process is playing out in communities up and down the 87 Corridor and we recommend you continue reading.

“Blockbusting” – Rockland County, Monroe Woodbury, Jackson Township, Lakewood …,  LostMessiah, March 11, 2016

“Cease and Desist” as a Means of Protecting Homeowners Against Blockbusting, LostMessiah, March 11, 2016

In Rockland County, non-Orthodox try to create alternative to Hasidic dominance, jta.org, February 19, 2015

 

Are Our Neighbors to the North and South Being Subjected to Blockbusting

BLOCKBUSTING is a historic means of overtaking community. We have written on this topic before. The tactic, while not legal, is justified in all manner and method by those engaged in the practice, it’s business. We favor legislation to prevent the practice, lawn-signs within communities, and communities experiencing this practice joining together to stop it from happening, though we recognize when the government officials legislating these issues are corrupt, the process of overcoming this illegal practice is difficult….. though not impossible. Be diligent. Vote.

by LostMessiah, March 11, 2016

Getty Images, Caption: “Lakewood real estate agents are pressuring homeowners in neighboring townships, sometimes with intimidating language, planting seeds of despair.“

BLOCKBUSTING CONTINUED….

In an article from Bob Quinn in the “http://www.thephoto-news.com/” we read:

KIRYAS JOEL – The Village Administrator of Kiryas Joel said in an email distributed to county officials on Monday that the “mass overflow of KJ residents” to developments in Monroe, Blooming Grove and Woodbury “will change the face of the Monroe-Woodbury School District forever.”

“You can still prevent this mass overflow if you stop fighting all the annexations now, but time is running out,” Gedalye Szegedin said in one of several emails that were copied to The Photo News. “The overflow move-out momentum in KJ is going forward in full speed to a degree I have never seen before.”

Szegedin identified the following developments as places where residents of Kiryas Joel were seeking homes: Smith Farm, Shea Meadows, the Rye Hill Corridor, Bald Hill Estates, Country Hollow, Woodbury Junction, Cliff Road, Serpi Road, Milval Lane and Worley Heights.

“The natural growth of the Hasidic residents of Kiryas Joel is in the range of 250-300 new marriages per year, requiring 250-300 new apartment units per year,” Szegedin said in a second email, noting that he is responsible for issuing marriage licences in Kiryas Joel. “The choice is crystal clear and it’s yours. “The natural growth will occur anyway, either in the annexation areas in KJ and in the Kiryas Joel School District or all over the towns of Monroe, South Blooming Grove and Woodbury and in M-WSD,” he added. “I am not threatening anyone. I am just begging you to open your minds and see the reality. If you keep on fighting all annexations in court, thereby choking the KJ residents from all its housing possibilities locally, (unbridled growth) is what you will get as a result. It’s all in your hands.”

In an email exchange with The Photo News, Szegedin said his emails were not statements. “We didn’t issue any statement,” he wrote. “I sent an email to the county leaders, its a similar email I am sending them on a regular basis.”

The email was initially sent to County Executive Steve Neuhaus, Legislative Chairman Stephen Brescia, County Legislators Melissa Bonacic, Michael Amo and Katie Bonelli, County Attorney Langdon Chapman, County Planning Commissioner David Church and Monroe Town Supervisor Harley Doles.

Asked for comment, a spokesman for Neuhaus said: “Annexations are governed by state law. The annexation approved by both the Town of Monroe and Village of Kiryas Joel failed to provide the fullest possible environmental analysis. Kiryas Joel and Monroe could have and should have come to a different conclusion on this matter. We also continue to urge state officials to find a meaningful way for the county to involve itself in large scale annexations such as this. It is outrageous that the state has allowed the county to weigh in on such small things as the placement of fences but when the highest density community in the region seeks to grow massively, we are given no role. The DEC commissioner should amend the SEQRA regulations to provide for a county SEQRA role and the state legislators should keep hammering on this instead of letting the issue drop.”

Meanwhile, United Monroe issued a strident reaction to Szegedin’s comments. United Monroe, like a coalition of towns and villages, plus Orange County, has gone to court to prevent the annexation. The group’s statement, issued from founders Emily Convers and John Allegro, reads as follows:

“Gedalye Szegedin’s email to our elected leaders is a disgrace. It is a shakedown attempt by a desperate man. Things are different now. The morally corrupt method of the KJPE (Kiryas Joel Power Elite) to achieve manifest destiny by threat – doesn’t work on us anymore. “General Municipal Law is very clear; school district borders do not change because of annexation. This was a fact when annexation was approved. It is still true today. There is only one way that the Monroe Woodbury School District will be affected with swift certainty. That is if annexation is approved, and tens of thousands of people move into high density housing in an expanded Kiryas Joel.

“Szegedin’s chart of ‘move-outs’ is subterfuge. Most of the families that moved from KJ into the surrounding neighborhoods lived there for many years before the annexation petitions were submitted. “The KJPE is complicit in creating a manufactured housing crisis,” United Monroe continued in its statement. “KJ-tied investors and developers, who hide behind LLC’s, own hundreds of acres of land near KJ. They prefer to keep this “crisis” alive by refusing to develop this land responsibly and sustainably, while they wait for annexations which will allow them to overbuild.

“The scam that Szegedin and the KJPE are trying to perpetrate on us, including the residents of KJ, would generate hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the Village’s pipeline project, and to line the pockets of a few powerful men. Now that his big lie has been exposed, and people within his Village are openly expressing their discontent, Szegedin is up to his old tricks.”

http://www.thephoto-news.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20160222%2FNEWS01%2F160229988%2FKJ%3A-%91The-choice-is-crystal-clear%92

One commentator to Quinn’s article wrote about the statement “The natural growth of the Hasidic residents of Kiryas Joel is in the range of 250-300 new marriages per year, requiring 250-300 new apartment units per year,” as follows:

“Since it’s customary for children to marry in the Hasidic community at about age 18, where are these youngsters getting the money to pay rents and mortgages? As we all know, the average income of people in this age bracket is statistically very low. My oldest son is just about to turn 18, and earns about $9/hr working part-time at Taco Bell. Even if he were full-time, it would certainly not be enough to pay a rent. I want to hear the answer to this. It should be interesting. Again, how do 18 years olds in KJ afford rent/mortgage? Please tell….”

http://www.thephoto-news.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20160222%2FNEWS01%2F160229988%2FKJ%3A-%91The-choice-is-crystal-clear%92

Blaise Gomez, a reporter for News 12, wrote on her Facebook page this afternoon under the headline ‘BLOOMING GROVE BLOCKBUSTING’:

“Donna McGoldrick is one of several Blooming Grove residents who say they are being bombarded with daily solicitations and cash offers to sell their homes to Hassidic developers and residents in Kiryas Joel. Controversial expansion plans in the ultra-orthodox Village of Kiryas Joel are on hold due to a lawsuit. In an email to local and county leaders, Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin referred to a large number of home purchases outside of Kiryas Joel by residents as a “messy overflow” that can be prevented if the annexation were to go through.” The resident in the Gomez report is holding up letters from Keller-Williams.

https://m.facebook.com/BlaiseGomez12/photos/a.456011327807556.1073741828.455785897830099/997728380302512/?type=3

(We have uploaded Gomez’s News 12 report below. If the video opens up in a new window with a blank screen, click on the screen a second time to play it)

Meanwhile to the South of Rockland County we read from NorthJersey.com that Toms River is among towns restricting door-to-door solicitation amid an Hasidic influx ……

LAKEWOOD — James Jackson didn’t want to sell his home but thanked the black-suited man for his interest anyway. That’s when the man put his hand on Jackson’s shoulder and told him he might want to reconsider. Many of his neighbors in the New Jersey shore town of Toms River, the man said, already planned to sell to Jewish buyers like those he represented.

“He asked me why I would want to live in a Hasidic neighborhood if I wasn’t Hasidic,” Jackson recalled. “He asked if I would really be happy, if it would be in my family’s best interests.”

A housing crunch in Lakewood, home to one of the nation’s largest populations of Hasidic Jews, has triggered what residents of neighboring communities say are overly aggressive, all-hours solicitations from agents looking to find homes for the rapidly growing Jewish community. The complaints have prompted towns, including Toms River, to update their “no-knock” rules and related laws, adding real estate inquiries to measures that already limit when soliciting can occur and allow residents to bar solicitations.

But Jewish leaders and others say the no-knock laws unfairly target Orthodox Jews and those seeking to help them find houses. Many current residents came to the community to study at one of the largest yeshivas in the world and eventually settled down. The 2010 census found the town had nearly 93,000 residents, about 32,000 more than a decade earlier. And town officials believe there are closer to 120,000 residents now.

“The growth in Lakewood is a sign of the great quality of life which is attracting all these people,” said Avi Schnall, the state director of Agudath Israel, a national grassroots advocacy and social service organization representing Orthodox Jews. “However, the challenge is being able to keep up with the influx,” Schnall added. “This has driven people to take residence in nearby towns, where houses are more available and affordable.”

Schnall calls the recent no-knock changes “troubling.” He also believes there is a campaign to prevent members of the Orthodox community from moving in. And he thinks the real estate agents are being used as the scapegoats, claims that leaders in neighboring towns say are unfounded.

Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queens College in New York City and a leading authority on Orthodox Judaism, says he doubts that such laws are anti-Semitic in their origins. But he notes that the measures may now be invoked more aggressively by people trying to keep Orthodox Jews out of their neighborhoods, for fear the area will become a Hasidic community.

“The problem is structural: Hasidim live in Hasidic communities predominantly. They can only move as groups,” said Heilman. “That leads to counter-moves by other groups who do not want their community to be inundated by them.”

Municipal leaders stress that their laws are not aimed at keeping out any groups, but rather to protect residents. “Our ‘no knock’ law goes back many years. It’s not just in response to what has been happening now,” Toms River Mayor Thomas Kelaher said. “We are trying to protect those people from conduct that’s outrageous, harassing, intimidating or unwelcome.”

Jackson said he was working outside his home last fall when he was unexpectedly approached by the man in the black suit. The encounter was initially cordial but turned darker, he said. “He was trying to intimidate me, but not in a physical way,” Jackson said. “He was playing mind games, and he was really good at it.”

Toms River is also in the process of creating “cease and desist” zones, where door-to-door real estate soliciting would be banned in designated areas that have been inordinately and repeatedly solicited. The ordinance is modeled on one in New York state that held up in court despite objections from realty groups. The New York rule allows residents to petition for their neighborhood to be included on the list of areas where solicitation is not allowed.

Realty groups say they their main concern is to find common ground. “Our local communities are incredibly important to both our members and our association,” said Mary Ann Wissel, chief executive officer of the Ocean County Board of Realtors. She said the group was working with real estate agents and local officials to ensure that any no-knock registry laws are both “respectful to homeowners as well as fair to the lawful business practices of our members.”

David Eckman, a Hasidic real estate investor, acknowledged that most of his visits to gauge people’s interest in selling their homes are unsolicited, but he said he has never tried to intimidate or mislead anyone. “People need homes, and I’m trying to help them find those homes,” Eckman said. “They just want a nice place in a nice community, like everyone else.” Eckman said anyone using fear tactics, be it directly or implied, should be barred. “If they do that, they make us all look bad,” Eckman said. “There are enough negative stereotypes out there about Jewish people, and doing things like that just makes people think they are true.”

http://www.northjersey.com/news/toms-river-among-towns-restricting-door-to-door-solicitation-amid-hasidic-influx-1.1516330

Where all of the above is going is anyone’s guess. However, it does seem that Rockland County will be facing many of these same issues very shortly. Presently there are 23,000 children from Rockland County attending private yeshivas and it is believed that there will be 50,000 within a decade. How this growth can be accommodated is unknown. Obviously, it is time that political and religious leaders of all parts of both these spectra begin to plan for the future so that change can occur smoothly and hopefull to the mutual benefit of all.

However, one thing that is not acceptable is Block Busting or Intimidation!

Taken from an article of the same title “Are our neighbors to the North and South being subjected to blockbusting?” posted from a FB site in Rockland County.

See also: “Letter: Blockbusting going on outside Lakewood” from app.com published March 2, 1016

“Blockbusting” – Rockland County, Monroe Woodbury, Jackson Township, Lakewood …

DO NOT CALL THAT NUMBER UNLESS YOU WANT TO PERPETUATE POTENTIALLY SHADY PRACTICES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are Realtors Really “Doing Their Jobs” When they “Find Sellers” for Their Buyers and then are “Selective” in the Shidduch????

A “Shidduch“is loosely translated as a matchmaking and interestingly, was a process used in a historical context to join introduce a woman and a man from families within different communities.

by LostMessiah, March 11, 2016

Blockbusting refers to the practice of introducing African American homeowners into previously all white neighborhoods in order to spark rapid white flight and housing price decline. Real estate speculators have historically used this technique to profit from prejudice-driven market instability.

HISTORY OF THE LEXICON

When the term “Blockbusting” came into regular Lexicon, it according to blackpast.org, originally referred to the practice of:

“African American homeowners into previously all white neighborhoods in order to spark rapid white flight and housing price decline. Real estate speculators have historically used this technique to profit from prejudice-driven market instability.

After intentionally placing an African American homeowner onto a block, speculators solicited white owners with tales of impending depreciation. Fearful residents often sold their homes to these speculators well below market value. As white residents began to flee in great numbers, other white residents sold their homes at even lower prices, thus further depressing housing prices in a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

See more at here.

With the Civil Rights Act (Fair Housing Act) of 1968 the practice of Blockbusting was OUTLAWED!

While the justification at the time is a sensitive topic because it originated in the distinct racism of the time, it not only created strife between whites and blacks during that era but also was a practice frowned upon as inequitable and dishonest to the whites in the community.

BLOCKBUSTING CONTINUES

In an article entitled, “‘Blockbustin’ pressures Rockland homeowners” in Lohud, Naomi Striker of Realty Teams in Pomona claims to be “just doing her job.” However, as homeowners who are victims to this practice can attest, it can be relentless, intimidating and beyond that, outright disturbing. We are gathering list of offenders to publish, in the Rockland County, Lakewood, New Jersey and Monroe-Woodbury area and we urge our readers to consider the agencies before deciding to see their homes.

LostMessiah, following research of our own, can attest to the blockbusting techniques of Mark1 Realty, Realty Teams, Imperial.  Some towns like Toms River, New Jersey have recently approved a five-year ban in door-to-door solicitation.

Other towns are offering lawn signs that state that no solicitation is allowed. We invite you to send along other names of Realtors who are known for these practices.

We suggest if you want to keep your towns and prevent this practice, you consider following suite.

 

Anti-Semitim as the Rally Cry for Those Being Accused of Blockbusting in Worley Heights

Accused of Blockbusting and Intimidation, Calls of Anti-Semitism Flurry…

Concerns over the schools in the Washingtonville School District, have members of the community worried. The fliers left in mailboxes and pushing sales have homeowners concerned about home values. The recent purchase of several homes by Brooklyn homebuyers looking to expand the boarders of Kiryas Joel have people angry.

Words of wisdom: 

1. Make sure you go out and vote for your school board members.
2. Make sure to vote for your local officials.
3. Be cohesive as a community.
4. Be diligent.
5. Pay attention.
6. Don’t get complacent.

Finding homes for the Hasidic: Push is on in Worley Heights

From Recordonline.com, March 5, 2016

“Blockbusting is the practice of inducing panic-selling in a neighborhood by telling residents a particular group is moving in and warning that their home values might drop as a result. Lynch contends that what made the unsolicited purchase offers objectionable — and could constitute “block-busting” — was the blanket suggestion that buyers were ready to buy any houses in the neighborhood, sight unseen.”

“Arthur Meisels, the Brooklyn businessman who appears to be the investor behind the homes that Halpern purchased, didn’t respond to phone messages. Reached by phone at their home in Brooklyn, his wife, Miriam, complained that recent news coverage about the Blooming Grove homes sales had been anti-Semitic, and that a neighbor screamed at her while she was looking at a house in Blooming Grove with a real estate agent. “The broker was embarrassed,” she said.”

For the entire article click here.

Taking From the Playbook of Expansionism, The Hassidim

Are the Hasidim Who Are Overtaking Areas Like East Ramapo, Lakewood, Toms River, Monroe-Woodbury, and on, and on… Like Israel, Antwerp, Britain, and on and on…Expansionists or Imperialists?

by LostMessiah, March 7, 2016

Wikipedia defines Expansionism as follows:

In general, expansionism consists of policies of governments and states that involve expansion in such context as the military, economy, etc. While some have linked the term to promoting economic growth (in contrast to no growth / sustainable policies), more commonly expansionism refers to the doctrine of a state expanding its territorial base (or economic influence) usually, though not necessarily, by means of military aggression. Compare empire-building, colonialism, and Lebensraum.

Irredentism, revanchism, reunification or pan-nationalism are sometimes used to justify and legitimize expansionism, but only when the explicit goal is to reconquer territories that have been lost, or to take over ancestral lands. A simple territorial dispute, such as a border dispute, is not usually referred to as expansionism.

In a Sparknotes.com comment on the differences between Expansionism and Imperialism, the distinction is the use of a military presence. Expansionism is a view towards looking at development where Imperialism is classified as “imposing a military presence and colonial government…”.

Interestingly, criticism levied upon the Hasidic community is labeled as anti-Semitic. Those who criticize are deemed to be anti-Jewish, self-hating or anti-Semitic. The ultra-Orthodox community wastes no time comparing language that otherwise calls into question their behavior as human beings and not necessarily as Jews. The Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox rely on the anti-Jewish brutality of the Nazi regime during WWII to defend all of their actions. In fact, when asked why they have so many children, the usual response, “to replace the 6Million Jews lost at the hand of Hitler.”

Yet, those same ultra-Orthodox are the last to look in the mirror and scrutinize themselves, using that same history as a basis. Their geopolitical, philosophical and expansionist agenda in terms that cross norms of modern society is not a thought or an afterthought. Were the ultra-Orthodox to take that look, scrutinize themselves, make the necessary comparisons, they might find a very horrifying picture painted before them.

Any comparison of the expansionist/imperialist practices of the ultra-Orthodox community, including the intimidation and blockbusting, the overtaking of public school systems, the voting in of elected officials by a cohesive block, the silencing of people within their own communities is all too similar to the methods of Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Red Army.

In fact, and again, something about which LostMessiah  is uneasy, in a quote from AISH.Com, an online Orthodox information source, in a piece entitled German Expansion & War, Hitler’s insatiable appetite swallows up most of Europe, the similarities are all too obvious.

“With rising power, Germany began to take what they felt was rightfully theirs. The German population of 65 million felt they needed a little stretching room. They considered expansion for “Lebensraum,” living space, their inalienable right.”

The ultra-Orthodox claims of entitlement over land, over subsidies, over Medicaid, over school districts and education funding, over reduced taxes is rhetoric that is unsettlingly familiar.

At risk of inciting hatred, which is really not the intended consequence of this article, we are going to stop here. We leave you to ponder the rest.

The Officially Unofficial Relationship Between Lakewood and Monsey… and Staten Island?

We Might Go So Far As to Ask For An Officially Official Investigation into the Sale of This Property XXXXXXX…..

by LostMessiah, March xxx 5, 2016

In November of 2014 when 191A Viola Road was sold did the Sellers know that they were selling their property to a Yeshivah? Was the property in Lakewood? Was it in Ramapo? Do we even know the zip code? 

Look for yourselves because we can’t be so sure… XXX

What happens when you sell a piece of property, listed as a “one family residence” in the East Ramapo Central School District and it winds up officially/unofficially owned by a Yeshivah, Heichal HaTorah, a Staten Island based Yeshivah?

We are still trying to decipher the officially unofficial (or is that unofficially official) paperwork. See as follows…

 

El Al Sued in Court in Israel for Sexism

Published in The New York Times Saturday Edition, February 26, 2016 – [links added]

She Was Asked to Switch Seats. Now She’s Charging El Al With Sexism.

The Saturday Profile

By ISABEL KERSHNER FEB. 26, 2016

JERUSALEM — RENEE RABINOWITZ is a sharp-witted retired lawyer with a Ph.D. in educational psychology, who escaped the Nazis in Europe as a child. Now she is about to become a test case in the battle over religion and gender in Israel’s public spaces — and the skies above — as the plaintiff in a lawsuit accusing El Al, the national airline, of discrimination.

Ms. Rabinowitz was comfortably settled into her aisle seat in the business-class section on El Al Flight 028 from Newark to Tel Aviv in December when, as she put it, “this rather distinguished-looking man in Hasidic or Haredi garb, I’d guess around 50 or so, shows up.”

The man was assigned the window seat in her row. But, like many ultra-Orthodox male passengers, he did not want to sit next to a woman, seeing even inadvertent contact with the opposite sex as verboten under the strictest interpretation of Jewish law. Soon, Ms. Rabinowitz said, a flight attendant offered her a “better” seat, up front, closer to first class.

Reluctantly, Ms. Rabinowitz, an impeccably groomed 81-year-old grandmother who walks with a cane because of bad knees, agreed.

“Despite all my accomplishments — and my age is also an accomplishment — I felt minimized,” she recalled in a recent interview in her elegantly appointed apartment in a fashionable neighborhood of Jerusalem.

“For me this is not personal,” Ms. Rabinowitz added. “It is intellectual, ideological and legal. I think to myself, here I am, an older woman, educated, I’ve been around the world, and some guy can decide that I shouldn’t sit next to him. Why?”

That is just what many feminists and advocates of religious pluralism in Israel and abroad have been asking in what by all accounts is a growing phenomenon of religious Jewish men refusing to sit next to women on airplanes. Several flights from New York to Israel, on El Al and other airlines, have been delayed or disrupted as women refused to move, and there have been social media campaigns including a protest petition.

Just this week, in a different but related situation, an ultra-Orthodox man created a disturbance on an El Al flight from Warsaw to Tel Aviv to protest the screening of “Truth,” starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford, a movie he deemed immodest, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported.

Now, a liberal advocacy group that had spent two years searching for a test case on switching seats plans to sue the blue-and-white flag carrier on Ms. Rabinowitz’s behalf in a Tel Aviv court next week.

“We needed a case of a flight attendant being actively involved,” explained the group’s director, Anat Hoffman, “to show that El Al has internalized the commandment, ‘I cannot sit next to a woman.’ ”

An El Al spokeswoman said in a statement that “any discrimination between passengers is strictly prohibited.”

“El Al flight attendants are on the front line of providing service for the company’s varied array of passengers,” the statement said. “In the cabin, the attendants receive different and varied requests and they try to assist as much as possible, the goal being to have the plane take off on time and for all the passengers to arrive at their destination as scheduled.”
Ms. Hoffman’s group, the Israel Religious Action Center, the public and legal advocacy arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, previously fought Israeli bus companies and the Ministry of Transportation over gender segregation on so-called kosher lines that serve ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. The Supreme Court in 2011 made it illegal to require women to sit in the back of the bus and allowed men and women to sit separately only if they did so voluntarily. Two years later, Israel’s attorney general issued guidelines calling on government ministries and public agencies to end all manifestations of gender segregation in the public sphere.

THE group has since turned its focus skyward. Ms. Rabinowitz attended a lecture by Ms. Hoffman a few weeks after her fateful flight. The topic of seat switching came up, and Ms. Rabinowitz told Ms. Hoffman it had happened to her.

“When I told Anat that the flight attendant had asked me to move, she got very excited,” Ms. Rabinowitz recalled.

Ms. Rabinowitz, who moved to Jerusalem from the United States about a decade ago, says that she is not anti-Haredi — the Hebrew term for ultra-Orthodox, meaning one who trembles before God — and she comes with her own God-fearing credentials.

Born in Belgium, she fled with her family during the Nazi occupation in 1941. She had a religious upbringing, attended an Orthodox Jewish school in New York, where a strictly modest dress code applied, and she still observes most of the laws of the Sabbath. Both her second husband, who died three years ago, and her first (they divorced in 1986) were rabbis.

She described one of her grandchildren as being Hasidic or Haredi, and said, “The idea of having a Haredi population is wonderful, as long as they don’t tell me what to do.”

“There were two women seated there,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oy, if they are going to talk all night I am not going to be happy.’” She asked the flight attendant if he was suggesting the switch because the man next to her wanted her to move, she said, “and he said ‘yes’ without any hesitation.”

WHEN Ms. Rabinowitz returned to her original seat to collect her hand luggage, with the attendant’s assistance, she asked the other passenger, “Why does it matter? I’m 81 years old. And he says, ‘It’s in the Torah.’ ” After briefly arguing the point, she moved to the new seat. “I thought, ‘He’s going to be unhappy,’” she recalled. “There was no other seat available for him next to a man so I thought I’d try it.”

The other women in the new row were busy working and did not chatter. Still, Ms. Rabinowitz said she felt further insulted because the attendant had tried to mislead her.
“The flight attendant treated me as if I was stupid,” she said, “but that’s a common problem in Israel if you don’t speak Hebrew. They assume things about you. They assume they can put one over you.”

A lawyer for the religious action group wrote a letter to El Al last month saying that Ms. Rabinowitz had felt pressured by the attendant and accusing El Al of illegal discrimination. It argued that a request not to be seated next to a woman differed from other requests to move, say, to sit near a relative or a friend, because it was by nature degrading. The lawyer demanded 50,000 shekels, about $13,000, in compensation for Ms. Rabinowitz.

The airline offered, instead, a $200 discount on Ms. Rabinowitz’s next El Al flight. It insisted that there was no gender discrimination on El Al flights, that the flight attendant had made it clear to Ms. Rabinowitz that she was in no way obligated to move, and that she had changed seats without argument.

Ms. Rabinowitz has since had time to ponder. She said her son told her that “this whole idea that you cannot sit next to a woman is bogus.” She cited an eminent Orthodox scholar, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who counseled that it was acceptable for a Jewish man to sit next to a woman on a subway or a bus so long as there was no intention to seek sexual pleasure from any incidental contact.

“When did modesty become the sum and end all of being a Jewish woman?” Ms. Rabinowitz asked. Citing examples like the biblical warrior Deborah, the matriarch Sarah and Queen Esther, she noted: “Our heroes in history were not modest little women.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 27, 2016, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: She Was Asked to Switch Seats. Now She’s Charging El Al With Sexism.
Ms. Rabinowitz had been visiting family in New York before boarding the Dec. 2 El Al flight home. By her account, the flight attendant had a brief conversation in Hebrew with her ultra-Orthodox seatmate-to-be, which she could not understand, then persuaded Ms. Rabinowitz to come and see the “better” seat, at the end of a row of three.

 

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