Some people have claimed that these groups are only in favor of separation of church and state; they oppose the separation of synagogue and state.
The other day I wrote about the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2843, chimed in, too.
So you can imagine my surprise when I read a certain story in a Jewish newspaper the other day. It’s about a kosher dairy in the small town of Ogdenburg, New York. Ahava Dairy supplies cheese for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. It employs rabbis as full time inspectors to ensure that the cheese is produced according to strict Jewish law.
And it’s now owned by the city of Ogdensburg.That’s right; a kosher dairy, an explicitly religious enterprise, is owned by a municipality. It seems the dairy was bankrupt, owing tens of millions of dollars to its creditors, and was running out of time. The banks were preparing to foreclose on the money losing operation and sell the equipment. So the city manager stepped in to protect the dairy, seizing the plant for back taxes, but allowing the religious business to continue.
“The Ahava plant is located at 30 Main Street in Ogdensburg. The city is now the owner of record of the land, the building, and the highly sophisticated machinery in the plant itself. The cheese product is still being delivered, the dairy farmers are selling their milk, and the citizens of Ogdensburg employed at the plant still have their jobs. The kosher supervisions are also still in place.
“How did the city acquire ownership of the plant when there were big, experienced, banks trying to foreclose? “We utilized what is known as a tax lien forfeiture. The company owed approximately $60,000 in taxes. I merely filed the papers on behalf of the city,” explained Mr. Sciorra. “The essential issue at play here is that a city, any city, can move much faster than a bank when it comes to filing papers and foreclosing,” said Michael Edery, owner of Paradigm Funding based in Cedarhurst. It is evident from here that municipal tax liens always supersede private liens of any sort and can be acted upon with extreme swiftness if need be. That is why in 99 percent of cases lenders escrow for real estate taxes to avoid the precise scenario that occurred here.” Paradigm Funding is a nationally recognized real estate lending firm.
“Although the banks lost out on this one, the people in the city of Ogdensburg clearly gained. There are still numerous hurdles that must be overcome to ensure that things will work out best for all parties involved. “The city, of course, is not in the business of producing chalav Yisrael cheese, or any cheese, for that matter,” explained Mr. Sciorra. Some sort of rental arrangement will have to be worked out between the city and Ahava or whatever entity will continue running the plant. In the meantime, the city of Ogdensburg is loaning the plant to Mr. Banayan.”
For some strange reason, I haven’t read a word of protest about this coming from the liked of the ADL or AUSCS. Some people have claimed that these groups are only in favor of separation of church and state; they oppose the separation of synagogue and state. Well, their silence on this issue is certainly interesting. It’s possible that they haven’t heard about the story yet, but that’s unlikely. I already read about it, and I’m no church/state watchdog.
No crosses for murdered cops, but a city can own a kosher dairy plant that employs rabbis to make sure their products adhere to Jewish law?
http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/jamesedwards/2008/08/26/no-crosses-for-murdered-cops/