The following article first appeared on March 2, 1961, in the Morgen Zhurnal (Morning Journal), a popular Yiddish newspaper. It was written by Reb Nison Gordon, a’h, who wrote extensively about various topics of interest to American Jewry. It was translated from the original Yiddish by P. Samuels.
A town with a population of more than 500, built by the Skverer Rebbe and his chassidim with the investment of large sums of money, is demanding recognition as an independent town.
How is New Square existing as a holy community which breathes Judaism day and night? Who is the Skverer Rebbe, and why did he leave Williamsburg?
When the leaders of the chassidic town of New Square will appear this coming Monday in New York Supreme Court for another one of their legal fights with the representatives of the Town of Ramapo, not only will they come with enough affidavits and documents, but they will also come armed with the powerful advantage inherent in the month of Adar. It is said that if a Jew has a trial with a non-Jew, he should try to arrange that the trial should take place in Adar, which is an auspicious time for the Jew to win.
“The other side of the dispute also has some Jews,” I said to an inhabitant of New Square, who is pinning a lot of hope on the month of Adar.
The New Square resident stopped to think for a moment. “There are also some Jewish names among those involved in the court case against us. The attorney for Ramapo, David Moses, even told a reporter from an English newspaper that anti-Semitism plays no role in this dispute because ‘I myself am also Jewish.’ But their complaint against us is the same as the complaint of Haman towards Mordechai and the Jews of Paras and Madai,” answered my friend.
“They can’t stand us,” he said, “because of the age-old complaint–namely, ‘their religion is different than any other nation’s.’’’
Everyone runs to the suburbs to rid themselves of the burden that city living imposes on its inhabitants. The Skverer chassidim fled the cities to be able to increase the “burden” which every Jew is obligated to bear.
It happens to be that right now there’s an uproar in America about a recently published book, The Split-Level Trap, critical about “Jewish” life in suburbia, which, if even half of what’s written in the book is true, it’s shameful enough; or, as the Megillah expresses it, “k’dei bizayon v’katzef.”
New Square is a suburb where each family has its own private house surrounded by a narrow lawn. Life is quieter and more tranquil than in the city. There’s a certain spaciousness, a spiritual expansiveness.
But that’s not the reason New Square was founded, and not because of that did the Rebbe incur so much debt and assume so much responsibility.
New Square is a holy community, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere in America. A piece of wooded land in the prosperous Rockland County was turned into a facsimile of an old-time village of Ukraine or Galicia of yesteryear, where on Shabbos it seems that the whole landscape is covered with a white tablecloth and even the greyness of weekday life is whitened by the joy of daily Yiddishkeit.
Whenever I happen to be in the vicinity of Spring Valley, I make sure to pass New Square, to ride through its quiet streets and to stop at its shul, which is outgrowing its cellar and becoming, as the din (Jewish law) requires, the tallest building in town.
New Square began as an idea in the deep-thinking mind of the Skverer Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Twerski, who came here after the war from Romania, where he had served as rebbe in the town of Kolorash.
In truth, the Rebbe from Skvere-Kolarash is the quietest Jew in all of America. You don’t hear him on any Jewish platforms nor does he attend any conferences. He is considered one of the few in our generation who fills his role as Rebbe as in the olden days; meaning, not only is he a grandson, leading in the merit of his forefathers, but he is also a grandfather with distinction of his own.
People close to him say that no newspaper comes into the Rebbe’s house. Yet, from his meeting with people he is knowledgeable about all world events. I know from personal experience that he tries in every way possible to see that neither he nor New Square is written about in the newspapers, though the chassidim, on the other hand, are quite pleased when anyone violates that prohibition.
The Rebbe’s reticence is such that he does not even say Torah at the tisch. A tisch in Skver is the embodiment of “lecha domiyah sehilah” (silence is the ultimate praise of You, Hashem). There could be hundreds of people at the tisch, and all are silently looking at the Rebbe as he sits quietly. Yet people leaving his private chamber are impressed by his conversation, how he inquires about every detail of the issues they have come to discuss with him. They hear his advice and ask for a berachah.
When he came to America after the war and settled in Williamsburg, not only did survivors who knew him from before the war attach themselves to him, but also orphaned Polish and Galician chassidim whose own rebbes had perished; in the Skverer Rebbe they found what was closest to their heart. There were even many Hungarian chassidim who couldn’t stand the politics of Williamsburg, and in the Skverer shtiebel they found peace and quiet. In Skver, these politics, which tore many congregations asunder, did not even exist.
On top of all this, the Skverer Rebbe also represents Belz, being a son-in-law of Reb Pinya’le of Ustilla, who was a son-in-law of Reb Yissachar Dov Rokeach, z’l, who was the father of the latest Belzer Rebbe, Reb Aharon Rokeach z’l. Being that Belz does not have a rebbe now, many Belzer chassidim travel to Skver where they find many similarities to Belz.
Living in Williamsburg was not acceptable for the Rebbe. Whether it was due to the politics or the general concept of living in a big city, of which Williamsburg is a part, he began to talk about moving out and founding his own town. His eyes fell on a large piece of land on the side of Route 45, a five-minute drive from Main Street in Spring Valley. They began building in 1956, and in 1957 the first families moved in.
Today New Square has a population of approximately 500. Sixty-nine houses are already inhabited. The boys learn in their own yeshiva, which is in a house during the winter and under the sky during the summer. The girls have their own school.
And livelihood? For livelihood the men travel every day into New York, some for business and some as workers.
The site was chosen for its proximity to New York. It doesn’t take more than half an hour from the George Washington Bridge or the Thruway, which the bus from Skver crosses daily–in the morning when the people go to work, in the afternoon when housewives go to shop or to visit with friends, and in the evening when they come home from work. The Skverer bus has two stops in New York. One is on 47th Street in Manhattan where many Skverer men are employed in the diamond industry, and one is on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.
The Skverer bus is an institution in its own right. One could call it a “b’lechticha ba’derech” (learning Torah while traveling) institution. The average Skverer commuter spends two hours on the bus. Generally, people read a newspaper or a book while traveling by subway or bus. Skverer chassidim consider time too precious to waste on such worthless pursuits. In the morning, the bus becomes a shul. They start davening on the bus at 7:00 a.m., and by the time the bus gets to Manhattan they have taken off their Rabbeinu Taam tefillin. The bus has a sefer Torah which is read every Monday and Thursday. If there are women on the bus, they sit behind a curtain.
In the evening, on the way home, they learn with chavrusos (study partners). Most learn hilchos Shabbos continuously, and many a siyum on Meseches Shabbos has been celebrated on the bus.
The above is all about the spiritual side of Skver. But New Square also has many physical problems, such as how to pay for the land and the mortgages on the houses. Constructing their own sewer system cost $200,000, and the roads cost another $175,000. To top it all off, they have to overcome the opposition and unfriendliness of the surrounding neighbors who are not embarrassed to declare openly, “We wish they would go back to Brooklyn,” and therefore seek various ploys and tricks to get in the way of New Square’s further plans.
The trial, which will take place on Monday in Supreme Court, is the significant point of a fight in which each side is suing the other. It was reported in the newspapers that New Square wants to become an independent village to be able to close the streets to traffic on Shabbos. The truth is that even today, when New Square is not yet an independent village, it has the right not to allow traffic on Shabbos, and there’s no one there who does want traffic on Shabbos. New Square is a village without a single television, so you could imagine that Shabbos is fully a day of rest.
The fight is two-sided. The township of Ramapo, under whose jurisdiction Spring Valley and Monsey are counted, among others, is demanding that New Square give them the deeds for the sewers and roads, claiming that they have the power over the settlement called New Square. On the other hand, New Square is demanding that the township send to Albany the petitions and voting results which show that the residents of New Square want to become an independent village and not a settlement in Spring Valley. New Square refuses to hand over the deed for the sewers and roads, and the township of Ramapo refuses to send the election results and petitions to Albany.
The rulers of Ramapo say that they have to keep an eye on “the guests from Brooklyn” because they can “ruin the entire neighborhood.” One of them even said that if New Square becomes an independent village they will open a slaughterhouse. As long as New Square is a part of Spring Valley, all building plans must be approved by the local zoning authorities.
The people of New Square say that this is just a fictitious story. They have no intention of opening a slaughterhouse. All they demand is recognition as an independent village with rights to build how much they think they need.
And when you travel to New Square and you see streets with the white houses, the children rushing to learn and the adults going to beis medrash, you see a suburb that the officials of the township, even the Jewish members, do not understand. Instead of a “Split-Level Trap,” which entrapped its residents in a vicious cycle of trying to outdo the neighbors in luxuries and pursuit of pleasure, you see a suburb which gave the residents an opportunity to throw off the stress of city life. They can lift their eyes each evening and, instead of smoke from the skyscrapers, they see the wonders of creation.
The Jews of New Square, headed by their great Rebbe, are worthy of recognition even by the cold, unfeeling legislature, who should recognize their pure, idealistic intentions and weigh the scale of justice in their favor.