Editing Kiryas Joel, New York (section)

===Local politics===
{{See also|Orthodox Jewish bloc voting}}
Critics of the village cite its impact on local politics. Villagers are perceived as voting in a solid [[Voting bloc|bloc]]. While this is not always the case, the highly concentrated population often does skew strongly toward one candidate or the other in local elections, making Kiryas Joel a heavily courted swing vote for whichever politician offers Kiryas Joel the most favorable environment for continued growth. In the hotly contested 2013 Town Supervisors race, the Kiryas Joel bloc vote elected Harley Doles to the position of town supervisor. Kiryas Joel then sought to annex {{convert|510|acre}} of land into their village and the new Monroe Town Board has had no comment on this issue. In late 2014 village leadership proposed alternatively that a new village, to be called Gilios Kiryas Joel, be created on the {{convert|1140|acre}} south of the village within Monroe, including all the land it had wanted to annex.<ref name="New village proposal">
{{cite news|last=McKenna|first=Chris|title=Kiryas Joel may propose new village|url=http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141118/NEWS/141119333/101129/SEARCH|newspaper=Times-Herald Record|date=November 19, 2014|access-date=November 29, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141206172423/http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141118/NEWS/141119333/101129/SEARCH|archive-date=December 6, 2014|url-status=live}}
</ref>

Kiryas Joel played a major role in the 2006 Congressional election. The village was at that time in the congressional district represented by Republican [[Sue Kelly]]. Village residents had been loyal to Kelly in the past, but in 2006, voters were upset over what they saw as lack of adequate representation from Kelly for the village. In a bloc, Kiryas Joel swung around 2,900 votes to Kelly's Democratic opponent, [[John Hall (New York politician)|John Hall]]. The vote in Kiryas Joel was one reason Hall carried the election, which he did by 4,800 votes.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

In the [[2020 United States presidential election|2020 presidential election]], 98.5% of Kiryas Joel voters voted for Trump, one of the highest percentages in the country.<ref>{{Cite web |title=DRA 2020 |url=https://davesredistricting.org/maps |access-date=May 12, 2023 |website=Daves Redistricting}}</ref>

====Internal friction====
Joel Teitelbaum had no son, and thus no clear successor. His nephew, Moses, was appointed by the community's committee members. But not all Satmar accepted Moses as the community leader, and even some of those who did questioned some of his actions and pronouncements. He responded by running the village in what they called an autocratic manner, through his deputy, Abraham Weider, who also served as mayor and president of the school board, as well as the main [[synagogue]] and [[yeshiva]] in the village.<ref name="1992 NYT story">{{cite news|last=Winerip|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Winerip|title=Pious Village Is No Stranger To the Police|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/20/nyregion/on-sunday-pious-village-is-no-stranger-to-the-police.html|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=September 20, 1992|access-date=May 13, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150526055320/http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/20/nyregion/on-sunday-pious-village-is-no-stranger-to-the-police.html|archive-date=May 26, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1989, the village forbade any property owner from selling or renting an apartment without its permission. Teitelbaum elaborated that "anyone that rents without this permission has to be dealt with like a real murderer ... and he should be torn out from the roots".<ref name="1994 TNR story">{{cite news|last=Rosen|first=Jeffrey|title=Village People|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/politics/village-people|newspaper=[[The New Republic]]|date=April 11, 1994|access-date=May 13, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150915105344/http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/village-people|archive-date=September 15, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the early 1990s, the [[New York State Police]] responded many times to the village, which has a generally low crime rate otherwise, when self-described dissidents reported harassment such as broken windows and graffiti containing profanity on their property. In one incident, troopers rode a school bus undercover to catch teenage boys [[stoning]] it; the boys later stoned a back-up police cruiser when it arrived. One of Weider's nephews was among those arrested. He admitted that some of the village's young men took it upon themselves to act violently against dissidents because they could not bear to hear the grand rebbe criticized, although he said most of them were provoked to do so by dissidents.<ref name="1992 NYT story" />

"Someone not following breaks down the whole system of being able to educate and being able to bring up our children with strong family values", Weider told ''The New York Times'' in 1992. "Why do you think we have no drugs? If we lost respect for the Grand Rabbi, we lose the whole thing."<ref name="1992 NYT story" />

In January 1990, the village held its first, and, for a decade, only, school board election. "It's like this", Teitelbaum explained when he announced the names of seven hand-picked candidates. "With the power of the [[Torah]], I am here the authority in the rabbinical leadership ... As you know, I want to nominate seven people, and I want these people to be the people."<ref name="1994 TNR story" />

One dissident, Joseph Waldman, decided nevertheless to run on his own. He was made unwelcome at the synagogue, his children were expelled from yeshiva, his car's tires slashed, and his windows broken. Several hundred residents marched in the streets in front of his house chanting, "Death to Joseph Waldman!", after posters calling for that fate were posted in the synagogue. After the election, in which Waldman finished last, but still won 673 votes, 60 families who were known to have voted for him were barred from visiting their fathers' graves in the village cemetery that was owned by the rabbi, and  banned from the synagogue (also, at the time, the village's only polling place). Waldman compared Teitelbaum to Iran's [[Ayatollah Khomeini]].<ref name="1994 TNR story" />

After the election, a state court ruled that Waldman's children had to be reinstated at the yeshiva, an action that was only taken after the judge held Teitelbaum in [[contempt of court|contempt]] and fined him personally. Friction continued as some of the dissidents banned from the synagogue circulated a petition calling for the polls to be moved to a neutral location. It originally drew 150 signatures, but all but 15 retracted their names after being threatened with [[excommunication]] by the grand rabbi, signing a document that they had not actually read the petition. One of the dissidents who signed was attacked while praying, and state troopers had to be called in again to disperse a mob that gathered on Waldman's lawn and broke his windows.<ref name="1992 NYT story" />

In November 2017, a local divorce mediator and an Israeli rabbi with ties to the village were involved in the [[Kiryas Joel murder conspiracy|planning of a contract killing]] on an estranged husband. They were sentenced to prison.<ref name="Orthodox Jewish">{{cite magazine |last=Gajanan |first=Mahita |date=September 7, 2016 |url=https://time.com/4483189/orthodox-jewish-men-arrested-kidnap-murder-plot/ |title=Rabbi and Orthodox Jewish Man Plotted to Kidnap and Murder Husband to Get Divorce for his Wife, Officials Say |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161114154106/http://time.com/4483189/orthodox-jewish-men-arrested-kidnap-murder-plot/ |archive-date=November 14, 2016 |url-status=live |magazine=Time }}</ref>

====Electoral fraud allegations====
On four occasions since 1990, the [[Middletown, Orange County, New York|Middletown]] ''[[Times-Herald Record]]'' has run lengthy [[investigative journalism|investigative]] articles on claims of [[electoral fraud]] in the village. A 1996 article found that Kiryas Joel residents who were students at yeshivas in Brooklyn had on many occasions apparently registered and voted in both the village and in Brooklyn;<ref name="Jweek 1996 fraud story">{{cite news|last=Greenberg|first=Eric|title=New York state investigates voter fraud among Satmar|url=http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/4216/new-york-state-investigates-voter-fraud-among-satmar/|newspaper=[[The Jewish Week|6=New York Jewish Week]]|date=October 4, 1996|access-date=November 29, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141206044740/http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/4216/new-york-state-investigates-voter-fraud-among-satmar/|archive-date=December 6, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> a year later, the paper reported that it had happened again. In 2001, [[absentee ballot]]s were apparently cast by voters who did not normally reside in the village. In some cases, ballots were cast by people who seemed to reside in [[Antwerp]], Belgium, without a set date of expected return, and, thus, would not be allowed under New York law to vote in any election for state or local office. That article led to a county [[grand jury]] investigation in 2001, which concluded that while procedures were not followed, and many mistakes were made, there was no evidence of deliberate intent to violate the law.<ref name="THR 2014 article">{{cite news|last=McKenna|first=Chris|title=Inside the Kiryas Joel voting machine|url=http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141118/NEWS/141119333/101129/SEARCH|newspaper=[[Times-Herald Record]]|date=October 26, 2014|access-date=November 28, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141206172423/http://www.recordonline.com/article/20141118/NEWS/141119333/101129/SEARCH|archive-date=December 6, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>

Before the 2013 [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] [[Partisan primary|primary]] in that year's [[special election]] for the [[New York State Assembly|state assembly]] seat vacated by [[Annie Rabbitt]], later elected [[county clerk]], members of United Monroe, a local group that organizes and co-ordinates political opposition to the village and those local officials it believes support it, asked the county's [[Board of Elections]] to assign them to Kiryas Joel as [[election inspector]]s, who verify that voters are registered before allowing them to vote. The board's [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] commissioner, Sue Bahrens, initially agreed to appoint six to serve in the village, but later reversed that decision. The six sued the county, alleging [[religious discrimination]]; it{{who|date=December 2024}} responded that they had no [[standing (law)|standing]] to sue. Village Manager Gedalye Szegedin said the citizens were entitled to have inspectors who spoke Yiddish and understood their culture and customs. A [[New York Supreme Court|state court]] justice dismissed the discrimination claim, but ruled that the United Monroe inspectors had been dismissed [[Standard of review#Arbitrary and capricious|arbitrarily and capriciously]], and were entitled to their appointments, but did not say when or where.<ref name="THR 2014 article" />

In 2014, the newspaper examined claims by [[poll watcher]]s from United Monroe that they were intimidated and harassed by other poll watchers sympathetic to the village government when they tried to challenge voters whose signatures did not initially appear to match those on file during the previous year's elections for county offices. They further alleged that election inspectors in the polling place, a banquet hall where 6,000 residents voted, sometimes gave the voters ballots before the signatures could be checked.<ref name="THR 2014 article" />

Some of the United Monroe poll watchers claimed that Langdon Chapman, an attorney for the Monroe town board, which they believe is controlled by members deferential to Kiryas Joel and its interests, was one of those who intimidated them. Coleman told the ''Record'' that while he had been at the banquet hall in question, he had only insisted that poll watchers state the reason for their challenges, as legally required, and had left after two hours. He was subsequently appointed [[county attorney]] (the lawyer who represents the county in civil matters) by new [[county executive]] Steve Neuhaus, whose margin of victory included all but 20 of the votes from the village.<ref name="THR 2014 article" />

After the election, United Monroe members found more than 800 voters in Kiryas Joel whose signatures did not match those on file, in addition to 25 they had challenged at the polls, three of whom were later investigated by the county [[Sheriffs in the United States#New York|sheriff]]; the rest were considered unfounded. Orange County [[District Attorney]] David Hoovler, elected along with Neuhaus, told the newspaper it was difficult to investigate the allegations, since they could not verify the identity of either signer, if, in fact, there were two. The ''Record'' attempted to contact some of those voters; the only one they reached hung up when asked about the election.<ref name="THR 2014 article" />