Rockland County, NY - Ramapo has the second-highest percentage of property exempt from town taxes. The town is home to 1,352 wholly exempt parcels, which have an assessed value of more than $267 million, or 13.18% of Ramapo's total assessed value. Only Orangetown, at 14.11 percent, has a higher percentage of wholly exempt properties. Such properties do not pay town, county or school taxes, but...

Nizhny Novgorod, Russia - Police arrested an 18-year-old suspected of vandalizing a Jewish cemetery in Russia's fourth-largest city. Thirteen gravestones were knocked over or split in two sometime before May 28 when the damage was found, as was reported here on Vos Iz Neias. Police are investigating four suspects between the ages of 14 and 18. And they arrested one 18-year-old who confessed...

Rock Hill, NY - A group of Orthodox Jews paid an expensive penalty at the Sullivan County foreclosure auction when they repurchased about 450 acres of land for $2.17 million because they had not paid taxes for three years. The group, registered in Brooklyn as Fordham Estates 2 LLC, purchased the old Camp Fordham in Mamakating for about $3 million in 2005. Despite several certified warning...

Cooper City, FL - Through the heat, humidity and traffic, more than 100 people sang in Hebrew and danced in joy down Stirling Road in Cooper City on Sunday, following the sacred scroll that they said marked a miracle. Gabi Damatov, now 17, suffered from horrific seizures since he was 16 months old. Gabi doesn't remember any of them, saying he would wake up in his bed or a hospital bed and know...

New York, NY - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is facing a firestorm of protest over his proposal to open the position of city buildings commissioner to a manager without professional engineering or architectural qualifications. Bloomberg has long championed strong management experience over technical expertise in areas such as public schools, but professional societies insist the buildings...

Mclean, Va. - Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday. Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those...

Quebec, Canada - Westmount’s council unanimously passed a resolution allowing a local synagogue to put up a thin fishing line called an Eruv, on utility poles circling most of the city. Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, is covering all costs related to the project. Chairperson Lynn Eltes says the lack of dissent is a sign the vast majority of Westmount residents are comfortable with the...