Religion is key to Lakewood's 'special treatment' for Jews

WEST BANK? New two-story, cookie-cutter home construction continues unabated in Lakewood NJ to house the Orthodox Jews who are coming from all over the world, as seen here on Manetta Ave. The piney woods that used to be prevalent in the town have been wiped out. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

By Carolyn Yeager

THE SAGA OF PETTY CRIMINALITY IN LAKEWOOD NJ I've presented so far provides an object lesson in “Special Treatment for Jews.” We see how a fundamentalist Jewish orthodox “community” moved into a quiet, somewhat idyllic East Coast town in large numbers and transformed it in their own image. We also see that the results of this are not good for the non-Jewish population, yet they are unable to stop it. To understand a situation like this, some analysis is in order and the situation in Lakewood is perfect for this purpose.

Fundamentalist Orthodox Jews are highly visible because of their distinctive clothing, making them stand out in a way reform or secular Jews do not. Lakewood NJ is a town where these Jews now make up half the population. The other half is a mix of African-American, Hispanic, and White. Therefore Jews make up the majority now.

We have in Lakewood a lesson in how Jews use religion to get their way – to assure their traditions or way of life are not denied or interfered with in any way, and even more often than not paid for by the outside community. They use their expert knowledge of the law in whatever country and city they're living in to take advantage of every part of it's legal system that can be used in their favor. Many Jews study law for this reason.

In Judaism, there is no separation between religious and non-religious law. For Orthodox Jews, the laws are from G-d and cannot be reconsidered; they must be followed. Their law thus supercedes the Goy's secular laws, federal and state. Goy laws can be broken and/or set aside without spiritual fault or harm to a Jew.

I did an online search for legal expectations for Jews living in non-Jewish nations and found absolutely nothing. Not an entry, not a line on what Jews owe to those countries they live in. Clearly, Jews do not take Gentile laws seriously, nor do they think they owe Gentiles anything. As long as they don't blatantly break our law, they are indeed left alone to follow their own religious law among themselves. And they certainly feel entitled to do so. In the current, ongoing Lakewood scandal, we can ask and answer the question: How is that working out?

The Star Ledger's star columnist

In three columns by Mark Di Ionno for the Star Ledger, we learn a great deal about how the township of Lakewood works and how it's future appears. “How Lakewood became a worldwide destination for Orthodox Jews” (May 7, 2017) and “Lakewood busing issues expose private school rides on public dollars” (May 14, 2017) and “As Lakewood grows, African-American population declines” (June 25, 2017) should be read by all and the accompanying photos viewed.

We learn that in the last 40 years, Lakewood's population went from 38,500 to 99, 250, made up largely of Orthodox Jewish people attracted to the yeshiva Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG) and about seven smaller yeshivas in the town. Lakewood is now the state's fifth largest city—crowded, congested and still growing. The largest jump came between 2000 and 2010, when the population grew from 61,000 to 93,000!  

Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG) Yeshiva students assemble outside the school in Lakewood, Friday, April 28, 2017. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

The expanding BMG currently has about 6,500 students in their post-graduate programs. They are young adult men, often with a wife and 2 or 3 children, as fits their religious tradition. They remain unemployed, and often not even legally married by the state, while immersing themselves in Talmudic study for at least two years, a way of life that is highly encouraged by orthodox Jewry. We know now that the couples have become adept at applying for and receiving multiple monthly state and federal government payments that are designed to support low-income families and unmarried mothers.

The school was founded and continues to be run by Kotler men. The original Kotler [in oil painting at right] came to Lakewood from Lithuania during WWII, specifically from the village of Kletsk where he had a small school. Property was cheap at that time and Lakewood was already a popular vacation spot for Jews. In 1943, the yeshiva he opened there began to attract more. Mark di Ionno tells us:

And they began coming to Lakewood to immerse themselves in the study of the Babylonian Talmud. From Israel, of course. And Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, as expected. But also from every country in Western Europe, Canada and Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, and as far away as Australia.

His son, and now his grandson, continued to expand the school – and the town.

... "And we shall sit on pillows"... Rabbi Aaron Kotler in April 2017,  current head of the Lakewood Yeshiva, who was responsible for building it into the largest in the world outside Israel. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

High-density housing has replaced old pineland bungalows. Neighborhoods upon neighborhoods of three-story condominiums have sprung up, along with apartment complexes. In the past two years alone, Lakewood has approved housing complexes totaling nearly 4,000 units and another 1,200 single-family homes. Simply put: the town is continually under construction, neighborhoods are in transition and traffic is intolerable.

The problems now include a failing public school system and abrupt neighborhood upgrading (gentrification) resulting in nowhere for lower-income people to live. But the solutions to these problems are seen differently by the town's Jews than by the rest of the population. For example, since Lakewood is on track to become the third largest city in New Jersey by midcentry, Rabbi Aaron Kotler [above], the current BMG CEO, says it will need better public transportation for a population forbidden to drive on the Sabbath. This is an example of how the Jews in Lakewood see everything in terms of what best serves them, and can influence the tax money to be spent in that direction.

Another example: the problem plaguing the public school system is the cost of transporting 30,000 Orthodox K-12 students to religious schools all over the area in separate buses for boys and girls! It is state law, enacted in 1967 for safety reasons, that all students who live 2 miles or more from their school, public or private, are provided with free transportation.

Jewish members dominate the school board. Above, Lakewood BOE president Barry A. Iann (center) comments during a May meeting as a look-alike member sits beside him. / Russ DeSantis | For NJ Advance Media

Not a single Jewish child goes to a public school, thus the Lakewood K-12 public schools are attended by only 6,000 students. Recently the school board proposed to cut teacher positions due to lack of money. But who is sitting on the school board? That's right – orthodox Jews. According to the school superintendent, a $10 million shortfall would necessitate layoffs of 106 teachers and create classes of 50 kids in some cases. At a meeting in May, “the public admonished the school board for failing the township's children, with a not-so-subtle undercurrent that members of the Orthodox community were to blame.”

Lakewood BOE public meeting over possible teacher layoffs on May 8, 2017. / Russ DeSantis | For NJ Advance Media

[Left: Another Jewish Board member Issac Zlatkin] It is a fact that the Orthodox “dominate” the Lakewood Board of Education. They get elected by their neighbors and co-religionists. They can enforce their wishes even though none of their children are public school students. When it was suggested to separate the boys and girls with a curtain in the bus to bypass the need for two separate buses going to the same place, it was rejected by the orthodox board members. The man who owns the school bus company (that has grown exponentially over the years) is naturally an orthodox Jew, too. Kickbacks perhaps? Or just religious cohesion.

Businesses catering to Jews are thriving in Lakewood. Aaron Feldman, who has run a kosher grocery store since 1972 says, “Business is booming.” Gedalia Tomor, who owns "His Place," a men's and boys' clothing store on the town's main street, said “This is a great business” – because there are no seasonals (summer and winter merchandise), no closeout sales, and every boy wears a suit! All orthodox men, beginning as teenagers, wear simple black suits and white shirts.

Aaron Feldman's small kosher grocery on Clifton Avenue dates back 45 years. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

Yehuda Braun, 14, shops for a new suit at "His Place" men's and boy's clothing store in Lakewood, owned by Gedalia Tomor. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

Tomor recently moved his family to nearby Toms River because “I wanted my kids to have space to play.” [Lakewood too crowded now?] But he says he feels the icy stares of his new neighbors who don't like that "their blocks are getting taken over by Jewish people." Understood. But why only icy stares? Why not an organized protest against “block-busting,” which has been reported in Toms River?

Just like settlement-building in Palestine

Thomas Simpson, 70 [above], pastor of the Intercessory Tabernacle of Lakewood is one of the few Blacks who refuses to sell his property to the orthodox Jews who want to buy it and tear it down. For years, they've been knocking on his door, he says.

"I keep telling them the church is not for sale," said Thomas E. Simpson, the pastor. "I ask them, 'Would you have sold Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem?' Well, I'm not selling my church -- for no price. I tell them, 'You're religious people. You should know there're more important things than money."

In the 1990 U.S. Census, there were about 6,500 blacks in Lakewood, representing 14 percent of the population of about 45,000. Today, Lakewood's population has risen to more than 100,000 while the black population has declined to 3,900, making up 3.9 percent of residents.

"All of Bergen Avenue was mostly black families, but there were a few whites and Hispanics, too. Now it's all new. We had a church in there but they tore that down. The town even sold [the Orthodox community] the firehouse, and they tore that down, too."

"I went over and watched," said Thomas Simpson. "They brought in a big claw, crushed them down and trucked them off to some dump in Pennsylvania and threw them in the garbage, just like that."

Lakewood Commons, a four-stage affordable housing project, has 192 units with another 66 coming. It was built on town-owned land with the help of federal grants. The developer was a non-profit start-up called NJ HAND, formed by members of the Lakewood Vaad, a contingent of Orthodox community leaders.

A drive through the project shows the overwhelming majority of people living there are Orthodox. One housing advocate, who asked not to be identified because they work with the Orthodox community, said there is one Hispanic family in the development and no blacks. "This was supposed to be done by lottery. Please."

A new synagogue under construction on East 5th St. Moses Waldnr and Pinchas Guttman, recently moved from Brooklyn, were installing windows on June 15, 2017. (David Gard | For NJ Advance Media)

In Hubba Simpson's neighborhood, the older single-family homes once owned by blacks are now rentals, and lived in by Hispanics. "They (the Orthodox) keep the Hispanics around because the Hispanics work for them," Hubba Simpson said. "But after a while, they'll tear down those houses and build new ones for themselves."

Tammy Mitchell, the pastor of Bethel Wells, said she wanted to keep her small church in Lakewood but met resistance when she wanted to add a second story. "They told us we were only zoned for one," she said. "I'm in the downtown. There're two story buildings all around. It doesn't make sense. How come everybody else in this town builds whatever they want and I can't add a second story to my church?"

"When I was growing up in Georgia, white people would tell you to your face, 'We don't want you here, (expletive)," Thomas Simpson said. "It's the same here. The Jews tell you right to your face, 'We're out for our own.' ''

How religion facilitates it all

The Jewish leadership (the VAAD, etc) have plenty of money to wheel and deal around the township to buy out homeowners and businesses to reach their goal of a huge Orthodox community in Lakewood. The young Jewish families are supposedly so poor from paying for private schooling for their minimum of four children, tuition for hubby at the yeshiva, real estate taxes and doctor and dental bills that they need to turn to government assistance programs for the needy. It's the way they always do it. They hide from the government agencies any real income they get from “personal sources"; this way of doing things is dictated by their religion.

Their leaders also teach them by example that when they are criticized for their lack of ethics, the preferred counter-attack is to accuse their critics of “antisemitism.” They are engaged in this now in Lakewood in response to the outrage being expressed by townspeople because of the extensive theft by fraud that has come to light.

When all is said and done, what Jews most have going for them, apart from their caginess in business and finance, is their religion. It's the reason they are given special treatment. I don't know any other people, and all people have religious beliefs of their own, who have managed to traffic in their beliefs the way Jews do. Just look at the so-called “Holocaust” – they were able to profit from it much more after they turned it into a religion. Strip the Jews of their religion and they are just a nation of crooks.

We've all been conditioned when it comes to the religion of these people. When they isolate themselves and hold together as a separate force within our societies, they blame us for it, and we accept that blame partly because we do recognize in ourselves a dislike for them and a desire not to be in their company. So these Jews parlay their separateness and unattractiveness into guilt within us, which leads us to go along with special treatment for them.

If the effect were harmless, that would be one thing. But it's not. Look at all the damage they are doing in this one town in New Jersey. They do the same damage wherever they are massed together in large enough numbers. Doing only what's best for Jews can only be considered acceptable behavior in Israel! It's time to simply put a stop to Special Treatment for Jews – SSTJ. Wise up. Stop Special Treatment for Jews.