RC Legislator Alden Wolfe Calls Out anti-Semitism at Last Week’s DOB Public Hearing

by Sarah Morgenstern

A group of four outspoken participants in recent public hearings have not only phoned in so many complaints to the recently retired New York Secretary of State Rossana Rosado that she issued an order to change the jurisdiction of the Department of Buildings (DOB) from Spring Valley to Rockland County, but on Jan. 18, a member of the group, in a thinly veiled anti-Semitic reference, strangely claimed that “hidden persuaders” are preventing the group’s ongoing involvement in creating the DOB's new structures and guidelines.

The group’s members, who are not elected, nor appointed by any local government, have named themselves the quasi-official-sounding “Rockland County Illegal Task Force and Private Schools,” because the certification of multi-family homes and the lack of secular education in yeshiva are their main concerns.

Curiously, three of the four of the members do not live in Spring Valley, according to someone who attended last Tuesday’s meeting, who explained that three members of the group live in Hillcrest, New Hempstead, and Matawan, NJ, where that member previously, and unsuccessfully, tried to prevent the local Jewish community from building an eruv.

One of the four members allegedly once ‘shoved and roughed up” an Orthodox Jewish man with whom he disagreed with at a previous public hearing in Spring Valley, another attendee reported.

“You can see the venom, hate, and viciousness in this person’s eyes,” said a meeting participant about one member of the task force who has been quite active in his “protests that are against anything that has to do with frum people."

“He has come to the school board and will protest any development, any permit, and any [Jewish] school," the meeting's participant said. "Anything that has to do with frum people: he will oppose.”

For instance, White’s most recent complaint at a public meeting was that his Orthodox Jewish neighbor had a birthday party.

“He complains about really nutty stuff,” a resident said. “They really stir the pot against the Orthodox Jewish community. Every little thing that they can use against us, they will. 

“We have a very harsh, small group of really vicious anti-Semites, who are real haters. 

Hidden Persuaders is an influential book that Vance Packard wrote in 1957 to explain how advertisers use manipulative subliminal techniques in advertising to persuade consumers to buy things they don’t need.

“I was shocked and personally offended to hear the use of the term ‘hidden persuaders’ at this week’s public hearing concerning the county takeover of Spring Valley’s code enforcement function,” said Rockland County Legislator Alden H. Wolfe, who pointed out that the term has nothing to do with the public influencing elected officials.

“The “hidden persuader” is a classic trope, fomenting the belief that Jews control many areas of our lives, including the government,” Wolfe wrote in a statement. “[Anti-Semitic beliefs] are alive and well in Rockland County, where for years, many of my colleagues in government and I have been called ‘bloc puppets’ whenever it suited particular political agendas.”

What is strange about the task force’s focus on the Jews of Rockland County is that they support the change in jurisdiction from the village to the county.

“No one is against code enforcement,” said a participant in local government. “Unfortunately, that is the way things are in Rockland County. The Jews are often blamed for everything.

“The group’s blaming of ‘hidden persuaders,’ for their exclusion from the process of switching the jurisdiction of Spring Valley’s DOB to Rockland County is classic anti-Semitism. 

“I was sitting in the legislature, and we didn’t quite understand what they were saying. Hidden persuaders: what does it even mean? It sounded like something from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

“It came across as so toxic.”

Many legislators were initially confused by the use of the term ‘hidden persuaders, but Wolfe said, “When used in the context of the planned county takeover of code enforcement in Spring Valley, which will be voted on and passed at the next Legislature meeting, we all know about whom you are talking. 

“Because it’s the same community you always talk about. We see you, and we will call you out each and every time you make it necessary.