Agudath Israel of America urges a “no” vote in the upcoming referendum in Ramapo, New York which would change the method of electing town officials. The unstated goal of the referendum is to weaken the political influence of Orthodox Jews in the town by permitting them to vote only for candidates from their immediate neighborhood rather than the town as a whole, which is the current system. The bulk of the Orthodox Jewish community would be concentrated in only two of six districts under the ward system.
This is classic minority vote dilution, only this time the victims are Orthodox Jews. A minority is being intentionally shoved into a small district to limit its ability to affect the outcome of elections in the community at large.
A ward system is generally proposed to help minorities who can’t win townwide or citywide elections. Here, the opposite is true. Both Orthodox Jews and African Americans have been elected town wide multiple times. In the ward system, all of the African American and Orthodox communities are forced into their own districts, making it unlikely for either group to ever have the same level of representation they enjoy under the current system. Under a ward plan, African American voters could not constitute a majority of a single council district, risking the council seat that has been held by an African-American since 1987.
Efforts to inhibit the voting power of any minority group, including Orthodox Jews, are simply intolerable. They must be firmly denounced and resoundingly defeated.
We urge voters to reject this referendum and leave the current system in place.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
10 Responses
By maximizing the power of the minority group your are minimizing the power of the majority group. Why is that ok? Are only minorities important? But majorities can drop dead?
Somewhat understandable.
Still,district/ ward repesentation usually leads to a more stable and responsible form of gov’t
I totally disagree with this as I live in Monsey and see how the board is totally controlled by a few not not the majority of us Jews in Monsey.
correction the current system work for the chassidim not the rest of us
If a “minority” group is a majority it’s hard to characterise them as a minority.
“This is classic minority vote dilution”
What a disingenuous statement! The Orthodox are the MAJORITY and this election-by-district system is designed to protect the interests of the non-Jewish minority.
Charlie Hall and his above ilk would surely be the first to protest if this had been a black majority town and the whites sought this same exact change to give whites more power.
Charlie,
You are utterly wrong, so much so that this cannot be anything other than an intentional lie. The frum Jews are not the majority in Ramapo. But we are not surprised, you are just like the Preserve Ramapo hate mongers. Whose positions are solely devised to keep frum Jews out of Ramapo.
Which would line up nicely with your farkrumpte hashkafos.
Stay in the Bronx with that other soneh Yisroel, Ari Hart and keep out of Ramapo issues, of which both of you know nothing and both of you have aligned with people and groups who have made and continue to make overt anti frum Jewish remarks in the papers and on line.
I do not know how you can possibly be do teshuva.
Destro,
Your description is wrong. If one belongs to a group, then the system works because there are advocates for all groups. The Chassidim, the Yeshivos, the Yekkes and the modern Orthodox. However, if you exclude yourself and make it appoint of not belonging to any group, that’s your own fault.
You can’t decide to exclude yourself from every community and then expect everyone to hop through hoops for your variances when you provide nothing.
And that is what the complainers do. They only want to take but provide nothing.
I’m not sure who the majority is and who the minority is, but over the years there have been opposition candidates who lost. If most people in Ramapo really wanted to elect those candidates, they could have come out and voted for them, but since there was not enough support, Preserve Ramapo decided to change the rules and give a few voters an outsize say. I hate what Monsey has become but I am more concerned about what’s next if these guys win.