Monday, June 10, 2024
Orthodox Jews in Bed Stuy say anti-Israel lefty polls trying to force them out of neighborhood with landmarking designation
A religious war is erupting in Brownstone Brooklyn.
An historic enclave in Bedford-Stuyvesant is being considered for landmarking — and some Orthodox Jews living there say it's part of a hateful scheme led by antisemites and Councilman Chi Osse to push them out.
On May 21, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to add two blocks, Willoughby Avenue and Hart Street between Nostrand and Marcy avenues, to the calendar for consideration as a new historic district.
Landmark status severely limits owners' abilities to renovate or expand their homes.
Large Orthodox families often need to expand their houses, Jewish homeowners explained, so limiting their ability to alter them will essentially force them to move or be unable to sell to other Orthodox families.
"We need big houses," Rabbi Shaya Saks, who owns a house on Hart Street, said recently while surrounded by a group of observant Jews on Willoughby Avenue. "We don't have one or two children."
"We feel that this is antisemitism because they are trying to stop us from moving in here," said Hart Street homeowner Herman Bodek, an Orthodox Jew. "This will have us moving out."
The roughly 50 Jewish owners on the leafy brownstone-lined blocks are speaking out after the commission's decision to potentially create the so-called Willoughby-Hart Historic District.
The 100-plus homes in the enclave were built around 150 years ago and the area is unique for "the quality of its architecture, strong historic character and sense of place of its streetscapes," as well as "its community history," the commission said.
The commission said it received a letter of support for the designation from Osse, a far-left politician whose district includes Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, as well as pro-Israel Democrat state Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman (D-Brooklyn) and state Sen. Jabari Brisport, a member of Democratic Socialists of America. Osse is a former member of DSA.
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