Monsey residents mobilize to keep Wal-Mart away
The retail empire Wal-Mart has a new enemy: the ultra-Orthodox community of upstate New York.
Over the last few years, the increasingly strong ultra-Orthodox community in New York has been spilling over from the old Brooklyn neighborhoods and into areas north of New York City, like Monsey. These areas have turned into large concentrations of synagogues, yeshivas and revered rabbis.
Monsey appears to be a peaceful place where the streets are wide, tall buildings banned, and quiet prevails.
But Yaakov Brill of the Vishnitz Hasidic sect says the quiet is misleading. The residents of the area are working to prevent a Wal-Mart superstore from being built in the center of town.
Wal-Mart operates 6,400 stores across the United States, and opened 21 new stores in November alone. Many ultra-Orthodox Monsey residents don't want a Wal-Mart in their neck of the woods because they are concerned that it will attract many non-residents, including non-Orthodox shoppers, and compromise the safety of their community.
Local opposition to new Wal-Mart stores is hardly limited to Monsey. According to the Financial Times, nearly every store that Wal-Mart announces it will open generates opposition from protesters who see the corporation as disrupting the quality of life and negatively affecting small businesses in the area.
A Monsey protester complained that residents would be forced to put bars on their windows if the store is built, in a town where residents don't lock their doors.
Meir Schiller, a Talmud professor at Yeshiva University in New York, says a Wal-Mart store would draw large masses of people, including non-religious Jews and non-Jews, and that some of these outsiders are likely to damage what he calls the special character of Monsey. Schiller explains that the Jews who moved to Monsey came because they wanted to live in a quiet place, and are suddenly being forced to cope with something that will likely transform it into a noisy consumer center.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/821797.html
--
Posted By Chaptzem to Chaptzem Blog! at 2/04/2007 11:19:00 PM
