Monsey, which in the 1950's was a small rustic intersection with a single yeshiva, now has 112 synagogues and 45 yeshivas. Of the 18,000 children bused by the East Ramapo public school district, which includes Monsey and several Ramapo villages, 10,500 are yeshiva students, a proportion of public school money to bus private school students that few American towns can match.

Hasidim have taken suburban cul-de-sacs and turned them into a more upscale variation of the East European shtetls, where a Hasidic family in a minivan can wheel into a shopping strip and buy kosher fast food, prayer books, ornamental silver, and even CD-ROM's with commentaries on the Torah.

But as the Hasidic and Orthodox community has grown, so have the tensions. And the collisions between the cultures have produced charges of anti-Semitism or, if the critics are Jewish, as many are, charges that the critics are scornful of Hasidic culture. For their part, the critics say they resent that every faulting of the Orthodox community is perceived as anti-Semitic.

(While Hasidim are Orthodox, they are heirs of a movement that was founded in 18th-century Poland by the Baal-Shem-Tov and stressed a joyful, fervent piety that would contrast with the intellectual formality of many rabbis of the time. The Hasidic groups that survived the Holocaust each revere a single rebbe, or grand rabbi, whose dynasty stretches back to Eastern Europe.)

Within the Jewish community, the tensions may reflect the historic friction between the Orthodox and members of more liberal movements who have long felt the Orthodox do not recognize their beliefs as legitimate expressions of Judaism. In Monsey, there are echoes of Jerusalem, where more secular Jews have chafed at the closing of streets and theaters on the sabbath and the Orthodox control over marriage and conversion. Although religious initiatives are less of a concern in a society where church and state are separate, the feeling among many non-Orthodox Jews in Monsey is that the Orthodox and Hasidim should not intrude into areas of civic life, like public schools, in which they do not participate.

Yet, the clash has forced the insular Hasidim to become more involved in communal life. Last September, the Rockland County sheriff's office hired a Hasid, Shlomo Koenig, as a part-time police officer, complete with gun, badge and 600 hours of training, and honored his need to retain his beard and sidelocks. Officials here believe he is the only Hasidic police officer in the nation.

The Issues

Plans Conflict With the Law

The Orthodox are impatient to put down roots, start yeshivas to teach their children the fine points of Torah and Talmud, open synagogues they can walk to on sabbath. But some civic leaders say that eagerness often conflicts with the law.