Reviews & Comments
Suffern, NY
Too Many Hasidim For My Personal Comfort Posted On: 10/29/2014 1:09:37 PM If you want to know what I can't stand about going to visit my parents in Suffern, it's the fact that the Hasidic Jews from other parts of the town of Ramapo have totally ruined the area. Their attitude of "I-I-I-Me-Me-Me" is a bad influence on me, as is their manipulative dishonesty and the fact that they don't behave the way the mainstream Americans, even mainstream Jews such as myself, have been trained to. In fact, for the first nine months after I started my current job in Kingston, I didn't go down there for just that reason, which is why my job coach gave me the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER DVD box set as a holiday gift to reward me for good attendance. What he didn't know was that the issue with the "Ha-Has", as I call them, had been a problem for years, making every visit very anxiety-producing; in fact a couple of weeks before I went on a visit in March of 2013, I got in serious trouble because of my severe anxiety. When I lived in Suffern, in the early 2000s, the only break I had from the Hasids was in a recreation group that I had to drop out of because one of the staff wasn't nice to me. She took advantage of the fact that I had no home front in Suffern because everyone was afraid of the "Ha-Has", whose attitude is that "everyone must live peacefully in misery until the Messiah comes to free us." In the 80s, when I attended a special day school in Rockland County, I had teachers who favored non-Jews over Jews because they saw the damage that the "Ha-Has" did to the county. That still happens today, and hopefully, if Ramapo is divided into wards, it MIGHT get better, but don't bet on it. When I take the bus from Suffern to the mall when I'm visiting my parents, and it's on a Saturday, I'm just grateful that they don't throw rocks at the bus- or at me. I'll be celebrating that with a special dessert on Friday night.
Ramapo, NY
Too Many Hasidim For My Liking Posted On: 10/25/2014 9:47:04 PMRamapo has WAY too many Hasidic people for my liking. The situation is so bad that I'm reluctant to take time off from work where I live now in Kingston to go back for a visit, because the Hasidim have caused so many problems, not just in Ramapo, but all over Rockland County, ever since before I was even born! In fact, when I attended a special ed day school in the county in the mid-80s, I had a teacher from Rockland County who was very hard on me simply because I'm Jewish, and she was "burned out" on the Hasidim. Years later, I had to be in a recreation group to get away from the Ha-Has (nickname for the Hasidim), and I got constructive criticism for talking about one topic too much. The staff members in the group took advantage of the fact that I had no home front in Ramapo because the Ha-Has believe that "We must all live peacefully in misery until the Messiah comes to free us." By 2012, the Ha-Has had ruined Ramapo to the point where I refused to take time off from work in Kingston to go down there, which netted me the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER DVD boxed set as a holiday gift from my job coach. I appreciated it, but I guess he never knew just how bad the Hasidim made things in Ramapo, even for a few days. I'm surprised that the Ha-Has didn't throw roocks at public buses on Saturdays. At one time, I didn't go to Ramapo to visit my folks for 10 months because I was so fed up with the Hasidim, which made the March 2013 visit extremely anxiety-provoking to the point where I got in serious trouble shortly beforehand. Maybe if Ramapo gets divided into wards with the vote on Election Day this year the problem will go away. Until then, I'll work my visits around my work schedule.
Kingston, NY
Nothing Has Changed Posted On: 5/4/2013 2:40:52 AM I was hopeful after the mayoral election in 2011, which also saw a Democrat elected as Alderman for my area, that the new regime would unite the people more. However, if anything, the new mayor is even more divisive than his predecessor. People still side with authority figures against me all the time, and my neighbors complain about my music, even if the artist I'm listening to is a good person. I wonder if maybe the problem isn't the government itself, but the people and their ingrained attitudes about people with autism. Or maybe they don't make the right choices when voting for leaders. Unfortunately, that's what happens when people are poorly educated. I've wanted to move for some time. but I stay because I work uptown and need to be able to get to work easily, and I live very close to bus lines both to work and the mall.