When Bronx-born Perry Meltzer migrated to the quiet town of Monticello, he planned to practice law among colleagues whose word was famously known to be their bond. He didn’t dream that during the decades, he’d build a loyal clientele of religious Jews, who came to see him as a loyal advocate who’d help soften local and legal opposition to their summer residences. Still, the biggest surprise that Monticello held was personal, not professional, causing Meltzer and his wife to reassess their self-definitions.
Meltzer was raised with a minimally observant upbringing attending some afternoon and weekend classes at the East Concourse Jewish Center. In 1970 he realized his childhood dream when he graduated Brooklyn Law School and passed the state bar exam. His first job was at the Bronx Legal Aid Society. But after marrying Jill (Yolis Esther) Rosenberg a Monticello native he decided to settle in the upstate New York area fondly known as “the Borscht Belt ” because of the yearly influx of vacationing Jews. Meltzer attributes his original decision to leave the Bronx for the Catskills to his love for her family fishing and other countryside activities. But there was a professional consideration as well: one of his wife’s cousins informed him that for Catskill-area attorneys “Their word is their bond.” Meltzer reflects “That seemed like an attractive environment for me to practice law in.”
In 1973 he opened his own law practice and has remained in the legal field in Monticello ever since eventually winning the position of a judge in the Town of Thompson in 1978 a position he has been consecutively reelected to and holds to this very day.
Meltzer’s professional résumé isn’t the only witness to his years upstate; his Catskill experience brought much deeper changes to his life as well. During their early yearly years of marriage the Meltzers practiced little Yiddishkeit. He recalls “My wife used to light candles on Friday night and then we’d go out to eat at a (nonkosher) Chinese restaurant.” He spent the Day of Rest clocking in hours at the office. Yet as the Catskills became a magnet for growing numbers of observant Jews Meltzer found his practice frequented by a number of clients who bore an uncanny resemblance to his bearded great-grandfather whose portrait seemed a thing of the past.
In the late 1970s a group of Vizhnitzer chassidim from Monsey appealed to the young lawyer to help them overcome local residents’ intense opposition to their plans for a modern poultry plant in Liberty New York. Decades later Meltzer still counts the successful approval of the poultry plant as “one of my greatest accomplishments as a lawyer.”
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