Frimet Goldberger grew up in Kiryas Joel, New York, an ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic community about an hour’s drive northwest of New York City. An overwhelming majority of the village’s 22,000 residents live below the federal poverty threshold, according to The New York Times. Most of the men devote their lives to studying the Torah, while the women marry young and have large families (the town’s median household size is almost six people, the highest in the country). The custom is for women to stay home to take care of the family as full-time homemakers.
And they aren’t allowed to drive.
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The presence of such a large and densely packed community in suburban New York has caused tensions over the years. Kiryas Joel has put in a request to annex roughly 500 acres of land adjacent to the village, which has prompted an outcry from opponents.
Kiryas Joel is also currently under investigation by the state. Since the town’s residents often vote in blocs, the community has been accused of stocking the local school board with its members. Public school families in the area have complained that the board aids Orthodox Jewish students who attend private yeshiva schools, while making deep cuts to public schools.
