“The gloves are off,” wrote Bill Rieber, supervisor of Thompson, New York in response to a rabbi’s public opposition to a casino in the Sullivan County town.
According to the Hudson Valley Times Herald Record, Rieber has drawn a very clear line in the sand in this dispute: Jewish leaders are with him, or against him.
“Anything less than a strong and very public statement from the Orthodox community leaders denouncing this unorthodox letter will be construed by us as total support of the content and rabbi himself,” said Rieber. “Twenty-years plus of relationship building will be for naught. Game over.”
That diatribe followed a letter by Nachman Caller of Brooklyn to the Gaming Facility Location Board, which has been charged with choosing up to four Class III casino licensees this year. The rabbi took issue with one of the two casinos proposed at the old Concord resort site outside Monticello in the Catskills, the Empire Resorts/EPR Properties project.
“Such a casino would be an affront to our communities’ sensitivities, and devastate the environment for our communities, summer camps and children, most of which are located within the immediate vicinity of the Concord site,” wrote Caller. Caller said he wrote the letter “on behalf of the 400,000 summer and 1,000 year-round residents who contribute to the local economy, own homes and pay taxes in Sullivan County.”
Caller did not single out a second casino proposal for the old resort, Mohegan Sun at the Concord. Rieber said Caller, who is also a lawyer, is “falsely claiming to represent 400,000 Orthodox community members.”
“Mr. Caller, trying to make a name for himself in a lame attempt to run for assembly in Brooklyn, has the unmitigated gall to cripple the efforts of so many people to bring gaming to Sullivan County,” he said.
Rieber called on local Orthodox rabbis to “immediately stand shoulder to shoulder with the community leaders and publicly denounce Caller, deny he represents them and loudly and voraciously support our efforts for destination resort casinos in Sullivan County. They must do so before the press and by letter to the commission and do so with absolutely no delay. Private messages and quiet assurances are not sufficient.”
So far, only Rabbi Bernard Freilich has responded in writing to Rieber’s Wednesday letter. “Rabbi Caller doesn’t represent our community and definitely not the summer residents in Sullivan County,” wrote Freilich. “He never met with any of the leaders of the summer residents, neither did he discuss the gambling issue with us, and neither does he have any Rabbi’s signature on his letter, therefore we are disassociating our self from his letter writing campaign.”
But that statement wasn’t enough for Rieber, who said opposition to Caller “needs to be stronger and in writing.”
