Kiryas Joel, NY – Government Grant To KJ Woman Center Criticized Over Mikvah

Kiryas Joel, NY – The mothers’ rest home this village has labored for years to complete, securing one government grant after another to cover its ballooning construction cost, has begun admitting its first wave of recuperating mothers and their newborns.

But Kiryas Joel officials appear to have concealed one of the building’s secondary purposes as the host of a religious bath known as a mikvah, a potentially illegal use of the public funds that were poured into the $11.4 million project.

Village officials insist they’re building a fitness center and spa in the basement, not a mikvah. The Kiryas Joel man chosen to run the 55-bed home, known as Aishes Chayil, has rebuffed repeated requests by the Times Herald-Record to tour the building.

Architectural plans for the three-story, 50,000-square-foot structure show little in the basement except mechanical and electrical rooms and open space, plus the outline of what is described as a “future pool” — large enough to be used for swimming.

But Orange County public works employees, touring Aishes Chayil (pronounced EYE-shiss hile) during construction in April 2007 to calculate the building’s sewer charges, discovered the beginnings of 22 bathrooms and a “small wading pool” in the basement, none of which was reflected in the 2003 drawings by the firm of Long Island architect John Baumgarten.

‘Cleanliness is next to godliness’
Their account was later filed in court as part of a lawsuit challenging sewer bills for Aishes Chayil and two other Kiryas Joel buildings. When the Times Herald-Record asked if the basement work meant that a mikvah was being built with public funds, Village Attorney Donald Nichol initially replied: “I don’t see how it differs from any other washing facilities.”

“When I grew up,” he added, “I was taught that cleanliness is next to godliness.”

Minutes later, after making a phone call to gather further information, Nichol called back and explained more emphatically that the basement would hold a fitness center and spa with what he alternately described as a jacuzzi or “therapeutic pool” — no longer a “washing facility.”

“You can categorically say that it’s not a mikvah,” he said.

What makes the “jacuzzi” explanation dubious is a subsequent account about the pool’s unusual water supply.

One visitor who has seen the basement observed an interior, concrete duct descending from the roof to a tall, concrete holding tank beside the pool — a conduit for rain water. Such a design is typical for a mikvah, which, under Jewish law, must draw naturally occurring water, such as rain or a spring, and channel it through non-metal pipes.

Ancient Jewish tradition dictates that a married woman visit a mikvah each month after menstruation to purify herself for sexual relations. The ritual — intensely private and conducted at night — concludes with complete immersion in a small pool.

Spiraling costs, more grants
Nichol described the basement’s 22 bathrooms as “changing rooms.” But they sound more like mikvah “preparation rooms,” where women meticulously clean themselves for as long as two hours before entering the pool.

Aishes Chayil’s main purpose is to offer mothers a quiet place to recuperate with their babies after giving birth in a hospital. Three similar facilities — each known in Yiddish as a “kimpeturin heim” — already cater to Orthodox Jewish women in the New York-New Jersey region, including one in the Rockland County Village of New Square.

Kiryas Joel officials estimated theirs would cost $3.5 million when they sought their first state grant for it in 2001. But the estimate kept rising as they repeatedly asked elected officials in Albany and Washington for more money, eventually securing $10.5 million in grants. Former Gov. George Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver were the chief benefactors.

The village’s lengthy solicitations briefly mention plans for a “physical therapy/fitness room” on an upper floor, with no elaboration. The architectural plans show none.

Nichol said in July the fitness center would cost about $300,000. But payment forms submitted by the contractor — obtained by the Times Herald-Record obtained through the state Freedom of Information Law — put the cost of the unanticipated “basement development” higher, at $397,500.

That would be a bargain for a mikvah, if that is indeed the cost. The lavish West Side Mikvah in Manhattan, which has four immersion pools and 13 preparation rooms on two floors, cost $10 million to $14 million by the time it opened two years ago, according to its staff.

Aishes Chayil a sight to behold
Construction costs at Aishes Chayil over the last two years, including the basement work, have been reimbursed in two installments through a $3 million state Dormitory Authority grant that Silver secured in 2007. The grant agreement prohibits using any of the funds for “religious worship, instruction or proselytizing.”

“If they’re making an effort to bill us for a mikvah, we’re not going to reimburse them for that,” authority spokesman Marc Violette said last week.

But Kiryas Joel has already drawn all but $296,000 of the grant. Contractor payment forms appear to indicate that $147,681 in Dormitory Authority funds have reimbursed the village for basement work done between December 2006 and March 2008.

Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin, who no longer returns calls from the Times Herald-Record, ignored written questions about the basement construction and other cost overruns at Aishes Chayil, sent to him by e-mail and regular mail.

The home finally began taking in mothers and newborns some time in November, although its administrator, Naftuli Oppenheim, couldn’t specify which week it opened or how many women were staying there; his head count used the numbers 19, 20, 25, 30 and 35 in a single, brief conversation. The village says in court papers that Aishes Chayil opened Nov. 2.

According to a recorded phone message, beds are going for up to $185 a night — comparable to the top rates at mothers’ homes in New Square and Freehold, N.J. That price for a private room has come down from the $200 rate village officials had planned.

Oppenheim never responded to the Times Herald-Record’s tour request. One visitor has called Aishes Chayil a sight to behold, fitted with such opulent touches as marble floors and a giant chandelier.