It's almost time to "spring" forward. The good news is, of course, more light in the evening. The bad news is the loss of an hour of sleep Saturday night/Sunday morning. Daylight Saving Time begins this Sunday, March 13 in the wee hours of the morning at 2 a.m. local time, when clocks move ahead an hour from standard time of the winter months. Schools start at 10:00 am new time.
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Daylight savings time this Motzei Shabbos
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Baby rescuer recounts
APP.com TOMS RIVER - William Copes did not plan on being a hero that day he saw a horrifying scene of death and twisted wreckage, but William Copes didn't hesitate when he heard a baby's cries from the rear of the smoking minivan reports APP.com“Oh, no,” he remembers saying to the handful of people who had raced with him to the site of the Wednesday morning crash on New Hampshire Avenue. "There’s a baby back there.” Copes didn't plan to be a hero that day "smoke poured from the battered vehicle's engine" But all Copes could think about was the baby. Fearful the minivan could explode, Copes quickly wedged his slight frame through a narrow opening on the Odyssey’s passenger side, cutting his forearm and bruising his ribs in the process. Squeezing through to the minivan's third row seats,
the 51-year-old Lakewood man found the girl, the only passenger, still strapped in her overturned car seat. She was alive -- and screaming, a positive sign -- but Copes couldn’t free her from the seat’s safety restraints. Outside the minivan, another motorist, Kerry Estomin watched Copes struggling. “Does anyone have a knife?” he remembers shouting. A heavy-set man handed Estomin a utility knife, which he passed inside to Copes. Moments later, Copes wriggled back out with the baby girl wrapped in his arms. She was scratched and bleeding from her nose, he said, but not seriously injured. After EMTs arrived and assessed the girl’s condition, they handed her back to Copes since he seemed best able to calm her. Copes said a police officer told him Wednesday that Eisdorfer's husband is deeply appreciative of what Copes did to rescue his daughter. While he's relieved she wasn't seriously hurt, Copes said his heart goes out to the little girl and her grieving family. Read more and watch video at APP.com
the 51-year-old Lakewood man found the girl, the only passenger, still strapped in her overturned car seat. She was alive -- and screaming, a positive sign -- but Copes couldn’t free her from the seat’s safety restraints. Outside the minivan, another motorist, Kerry Estomin watched Copes struggling. “Does anyone have a knife?” he remembers shouting. A heavy-set man handed Estomin a utility knife, which he passed inside to Copes. Moments later, Copes wriggled back out with the baby girl wrapped in his arms. She was scratched and bleeding from her nose, he said, but not seriously injured. After EMTs arrived and assessed the girl’s condition, they handed her back to Copes since he seemed best able to calm her. Copes said a police officer told him Wednesday that Eisdorfer's husband is deeply appreciative of what Copes did to rescue his daughter. While he's relieved she wasn't seriously hurt, Copes said his heart goes out to the little girl and her grieving family. Read more and watch video at APP.com
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Special planning board meeting
LAKEWOOD PLANNING BOARD AGENDA
Tuesday, March 21, 2016 6:00 P.M.4. PLAN REVIEW AND PUBLIC HEARING
1. SP 2168 Lakewood Conference Center, LLC
401 Madison Avenue Block 93, Lot 17
Site Plan to convert existing office to a combined office and synagogue
Tuesday, March 21, 2016 6:00 P.M.4. PLAN REVIEW AND PUBLIC HEARING
1. SP 2168 Lakewood Conference Center, LLC
401 Madison Avenue Block 93, Lot 17
Site Plan to convert existing office to a combined office and synagogue
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Lakewood volunteers prepare Purim packages
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Purim store at GG
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Stuchin Rebbe spending Shabbos in Lakewood
Rav Mottel Zilber will spend this shabbos in Lakewood at his shul BM Toldos Yehuda Stutchin on Courtney road. The seudos shabbos will take place in Bais Faiga hall.
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Enjoying the weather
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Melava Malka parshas Pikudei
Yeshiva Kol Torah annual Dinner Neeimas Hachaim hall.
Yeshiva of Staten Island Alumni Melava Malka at KZY 175 sunset.
Cooking demo at Gourmet Glatt.
Yeshiva of Staten Island Alumni Melava Malka at KZY 175 sunset.
Cooking demo at Gourmet Glatt.
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Know your rights when in need of a tow
From the forums @ Dansdeals
I got a flat tire was in Lakewood on Cedarbridge avenue opposite Seasons a little further down closer to Avenue of the states. Was waiting for AAA to come and tow me the police came while I was waiting and said they are calling a tow truck and I was charged a $150 they didn't let me wait for AAA they said it is not in a safe place. If you are in a safe place not blocking any traffic you have the right to call your own tower.
I got a flat tire was in Lakewood on Cedarbridge avenue opposite Seasons a little further down closer to Avenue of the states. Was waiting for AAA to come and tow me the police came while I was waiting and said they are calling a tow truck and I was charged a $150 they didn't let me wait for AAA they said it is not in a safe place. If you are in a safe place not blocking any traffic you have the right to call your own tower.
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Holy Schnitzel Replacing The Kosher Taco
source Yeahthatskosher.com
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Shiva info
Mishpachas Friedman -R' Shloimy sitting shiva for his mother a"h at 130 10th Street Shacharis 8:00 Mincha 2:00 Maariv 8:30 Getting up Friday afternoon
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Mishpachas Sorotzkin Shivah: 12 Sequoia Street in Pine River Shacharis 7:30 Mincha 6:30 Maariv 8:45 Getting up Thursday Morning.
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Mishpachas Sorotzkin Shivah: 12 Sequoia Street in Pine River Shacharis 7:30 Mincha 6:30 Maariv 8:45 Getting up Thursday Morning.
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Lakewood RY celebrates opening of Kolell in Chesterfield, MO
On March 13 there will be a Chesterfield Kollel Inaugural Celebration Dinner to be held at Stages Theater in Chesterfield. Recently, Congregation Tpheris Israel Chevra Kadisha (TICK) announced the inauguration of a new full-time Torah study Kollel, located on the synagogue’s premises on Ladue Road. The inaugural celebration event will have HaRav Malkiel Kotler, Shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Beis Medrash Govoah of Lakewood Yeshiva attending the celebration, as well as other esteemed rabbinical leaders from across the country. Photos below
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Mincha Minyanim
Bais Medrash Albert Mincha this week 6:40 Sunday 1:45
Bais Mordechai : Mincha 6:30 (in pulish) and 7:15.
Somerset walk BM Mincha- 1:40 / 4:00 / 6:45
Kol Arye Mincha 1:30,5:30, 7:00, 7:30
Roberts shul Mincha 1:40,5:30,7:00
Bais Mordechai : Mincha 6:30 (in pulish) and 7:15.
Somerset walk BM Mincha- 1:40 / 4:00 / 6:45
Kol Arye Mincha 1:30,5:30, 7:00, 7:30
Roberts shul Mincha 1:40,5:30,7:00
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Tonight: a Chinuch symposium
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7 injured in Lakewood crash
Lakewood, NJ – Four cars collided today on Route 9, injuring seven people, after a vehicle pulled into heavy traffic from a parking lot, police said, THE ASBURY PARK PRESS REPORTS. A car pulled into the outer northbound lane of Route 9 near the Howell border at 4:50 p.m. and triggered a chain of events that spread across the four-lane highway, said Lakewood Police Sgt. Leroy Marshall. Seven people — three adults and four children — were injured as a result, but none of their injuries were considered life-threatening. All seven were taken to local hospitals by Lakewood EMS and Lakewood Hatzolah, the Press reports. (Matzav.com)
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Lakewood heimishe for Trump
According to many Hasidic voters and political commentators, Trump has sparked an undeniable interest in parts of this culturally isolated world. "Among my circle of friends, at least 90 percent [support] Trump," said Yanky Lichtman, a Trump supporter who lives in Lakewood, New Jersey, one of the biggest Orthodox Jewish communities in the New York area. Chaim Schlaff was born and raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in London. He now lives in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and describes himself as a "proud legal immigrant." He is also an enthusiastic Donald Trump supporter.
Schlaff says he "loves" the way Trump speaks and so do most of his friends: "He talks about everything we think." Schlaff is not the only member of the Hasidic community in the greater New York City area that feels this way about Trump. According to many Hasidic voters and political commentators, Trump has sparked an undeniable interest in parts of this culturally isolated world.
Vice news article..
"Among my circle of friends, at least 90 percent [support] Trump," said Yanky Lichtman, a Trump supporter who lives in Lakewood, New Jersey, one of the biggest Orthodox Jewish communities in the New York area.
David Gross, a Hasid who lives in Brooklyn, said he was never interested in politics before this election, but "when Trump decided to run I got excited."
Related: Even Hardcore Anti-Establishment Republicans Are Horrified by Donald Trump
"He is honest, an everyday person," Gross said. "A lot of people I know agree with him, but they just don't want to say it." Gross added that he'd probably just sit out the general election if Trump was not the Republican nominee because "it won't be as interesting."
Jacob Kornbluh, a New York-based Orthodox political reporter for the news site Jewish Insider, says that there is "no question support for Trump is widespread" within the Hasidic community. The majority of Hasidic voters he's spoken to have said they plan on supporting Trump, although Kornbluh says that he has also found support for Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz within the community. But for the average Hasidic voter, says Kornbluh, "Trump is their guy."
The Hasidim are the most conservative wing of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and are culturally, ideologically, and politically distinct from mainstream American Jews. While Jewish voters overall are consistently one of the most liberal groups in the country, nearly two-thirds of ultra-Orthodox Jews say they are politically conservative, while 57 percent of Orthodox Jews identify with or lean towards the Republican party, according to a Pew survey of Jewish Americans.
There have not been any polls of Hasidic voters ahead of the primary election, so much of the evidence of support for Trump within these communities so far has been anecdotal. But the fact that Trump has also done well among evangelical Christians in the primary states that have voted so far (in South Carolina, he won 34 percent of the white evangelical Christian vote) is a fairly telling indicator of how Hasidim will vote as well.
Since 2000, ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York have voted in national elections in extremely similar patterns to how evangelical Christians voted, according to Sam Abrams, a political scientist at Stanford University who studies the politics of American Jewish voters. The only other religious group of Americans that are as consistently conservative (politically and ideologically) as Orthodox Jews are white, evangelical Christians, according to Pew.
read more at Vice News
Schlaff says he "loves" the way Trump speaks and so do most of his friends: "He talks about everything we think." Schlaff is not the only member of the Hasidic community in the greater New York City area that feels this way about Trump. According to many Hasidic voters and political commentators, Trump has sparked an undeniable interest in parts of this culturally isolated world.
Vice news article..
"Among my circle of friends, at least 90 percent [support] Trump," said Yanky Lichtman, a Trump supporter who lives in Lakewood, New Jersey, one of the biggest Orthodox Jewish communities in the New York area.
David Gross, a Hasid who lives in Brooklyn, said he was never interested in politics before this election, but "when Trump decided to run I got excited."
Related: Even Hardcore Anti-Establishment Republicans Are Horrified by Donald Trump
"He is honest, an everyday person," Gross said. "A lot of people I know agree with him, but they just don't want to say it." Gross added that he'd probably just sit out the general election if Trump was not the Republican nominee because "it won't be as interesting."
Jacob Kornbluh, a New York-based Orthodox political reporter for the news site Jewish Insider, says that there is "no question support for Trump is widespread" within the Hasidic community. The majority of Hasidic voters he's spoken to have said they plan on supporting Trump, although Kornbluh says that he has also found support for Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz within the community. But for the average Hasidic voter, says Kornbluh, "Trump is their guy."
The Hasidim are the most conservative wing of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and are culturally, ideologically, and politically distinct from mainstream American Jews. While Jewish voters overall are consistently one of the most liberal groups in the country, nearly two-thirds of ultra-Orthodox Jews say they are politically conservative, while 57 percent of Orthodox Jews identify with or lean towards the Republican party, according to a Pew survey of Jewish Americans.
There have not been any polls of Hasidic voters ahead of the primary election, so much of the evidence of support for Trump within these communities so far has been anecdotal. But the fact that Trump has also done well among evangelical Christians in the primary states that have voted so far (in South Carolina, he won 34 percent of the white evangelical Christian vote) is a fairly telling indicator of how Hasidim will vote as well.
Since 2000, ultra-Orthodox Jews in New York have voted in national elections in extremely similar patterns to how evangelical Christians voted, according to Sam Abrams, a political scientist at Stanford University who studies the politics of American Jewish voters. The only other religious group of Americans that are as consistently conservative (politically and ideologically) as Orthodox Jews are white, evangelical Christians, according to Pew.
read more at Vice News
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Overcast weather thru Thursday
Today Cloudy with periods of light rain. Winds will be E 10-20 MPH G30. The temperature will be 45 degrees. NIGHT RAIN DRIZZLE FOG OVERNIGHT
Periods of rain, drizzle and fog. Winds will be NE 15-25 MPH. The temperature will be 42 degrees.
MOSTLY CLOUDY SPRINKLES
Tomorrow Tuesday Mostly cloudy with a few light showers or sprinkles. Winds will be N 5-10 MPH. The temperature will be 61 degrees.
SUN AM SHOWERS WEDNESDAY
Morning showers giving way to increasing sunshine. Highs near 63. Lows near 40.
MOSTLY CLOUDY SPRINKLESTHURSDAY
Mostly cloudy with a few light showers or sprinkles. Highs near 60. Lows near 42.
Periods of rain, drizzle and fog. Winds will be NE 15-25 MPH. The temperature will be 42 degrees.
MOSTLY CLOUDY SPRINKLES
Tomorrow Tuesday Mostly cloudy with a few light showers or sprinkles. Winds will be N 5-10 MPH. The temperature will be 61 degrees.
SUN AM SHOWERS WEDNESDAY
Morning showers giving way to increasing sunshine. Highs near 63. Lows near 40.
MOSTLY CLOUDY SPRINKLESTHURSDAY
Mostly cloudy with a few light showers or sprinkles. Highs near 60. Lows near 42.
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Matanos L'evyonim
DONATE HERE
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it's almost Purim! Hopefully you have splendid plans for merriment and feasting. Let us add one more significant detail to your Purim preparation, and show you how to maximize it. Surely you are going to be giving Matanos L'Evyonim. This year you can give it in a way that is 100% helping a very poor family in need, while at the same time also fulfiling the Mitzvah of Bikur Cholim - seeing to the needs of the sick! THAT'S 2 HUGE MITZVOS FOR THE PRICE OF 1!
(And your heavenly reward is beyond doubled as well!) Here in America , a family among us lives in poverty, many months go by with $0 income. Basic necessities of life can't be met. The father has a severe, chronic, debilitating and devastating illness which medically does not allow for him to earn a living. Many Rabbanim familiar with the situation have endorsed this campaign and declared it "100% Mehudar Matanos L'Evyonim" which will be given to the family on Purim day. They need your Matanos L'Evyonim, and you want to give it in the best possible way! Your contribution will make a REAL difference! In the merit of your generous contribution may you and yours merit abundant health, success and joy always. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND POST ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES, SO OTHERS CAN HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS WORTHY CAUSE AS WELL.
it's almost Purim! Hopefully you have splendid plans for merriment and feasting. Let us add one more significant detail to your Purim preparation, and show you how to maximize it. Surely you are going to be giving Matanos L'Evyonim. This year you can give it in a way that is 100% helping a very poor family in need, while at the same time also fulfiling the Mitzvah of Bikur Cholim - seeing to the needs of the sick! THAT'S 2 HUGE MITZVOS FOR THE PRICE OF 1!(And your heavenly reward is beyond doubled as well!) Here in America , a family among us lives in poverty, many months go by with $0 income. Basic necessities of life can't be met. The father has a severe, chronic, debilitating and devastating illness which medically does not allow for him to earn a living. Many Rabbanim familiar with the situation have endorsed this campaign and declared it "100% Mehudar Matanos L'Evyonim" which will be given to the family on Purim day. They need your Matanos L'Evyonim, and you want to give it in the best possible way! Your contribution will make a REAL difference! In the merit of your generous contribution may you and yours merit abundant health, success and joy always. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND POST ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES, SO OTHERS CAN HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS WORTHY CAUSE AS WELL.
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Purim display at GG
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Its an invasion
Bloomberg- Every home is big on glass in a Toms River, New Jersey, neighborhood called North Dover. Windows let in the sun, or show off chandeliers in multistory entrance halls.
These days, though, most homeowners draw the blinds, retreating from brushes with a fast-growing Orthodox Jewish community that’s trying to turn a swath of suburban luxury 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Atlantic beaches into an insular enclave. The rub, a township inquiry found, is “highly annoying, suspicious and creepy” tactics used by some real-estate agents.
They show up on doorsteps to tell owners that if they don’t sell, they’ll be the only non-Orthodox around. Strangers, sometimes several to a car, shoot photos and videos. When they started pulling over to ask children which house was theirs, parents put an end to street-hockey games.
“It’s like an invasion,” said Thomas Kelaher, Toms River’s three-term mayor, who’s fielded complaints from the North Dover section since mid-2015.
“It’s the old throwback to the 1960s, when blockbusting happened in Philadelphia and Chicago with the African-American community -- ‘I want to buy your house. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.’ It scares the hell out of people.”
Scholarly Community
The upset has its roots in adjacent Lakewood, home to yeshivas including Beth Medrash Govoha, among the world’s biggest centers for Talmudic study. Scholars typically marry young and start large families that maintain strict gender roles and limit interaction with secular society.
Rabbi Avi Schnall, state director of Agudath Israel of America, which represents Orthodox Jews on political, social and religious issues, said a few sales agents “are overly aggressive and making a bad name for the others.” He declined to say whether anti-Semitism is at work, but said the “extent of the anger” in Lakewood’s neighboring towns is deep, fueling opposition to a learning center, a boarding school, dormitories and other proposals.
In 2014, Toms River accused Rabbi Moshe Gourarie of running a house of worship and community center in a residential area, an issue that in December drew more than 1,200 residents to a zoning hearing to raise concerns about traffic and property values.
“The residents are in an uproar not about the chabad so much, but about the real-estate canvassing,” said Gourarie’s attorney, Christopher Costa. Gourarie and his nonprofit outreach group have nothing to do with people looking for homes, and continue to seek permission to operate, he said.
“He’s been a little shocked to have 1,250 people object to what he’s been doing for 12 years,” Costa said. “Nothing has changed except for he’s suddenly being prosecuted.”
Separate World
The friction reflects increasing insularity among the most religious Jews worldwide. In Israel, the Haredi inhabit a largely separate social world, according to a Pew Research Center survey this month. They share few connections even with their fellow Jews and there is scant intermarriage; 89 percent of the Haredim surveyed said all or most of their close friends belonged to their own community.
Though just 10 percent of America’s 5.3 million Jewish adults identify themselves as Orthodox, they have much larger families than others of their religion, and “their share of the Jewish population will grow,” according to a 2015 Pew survey. Their conservatism could “shift the profile of American Jews in several areas, including religious beliefs and practices, social and political views and demographic characteristics.”
Lakewood, once a rural destination for Rockefellers and other industry titans, is now a land of synagogues, religious schools, kosher groceries and residential neighborhoods in the grip of minivan gridlock. It’s also a place testing the limits of zoning enforcement for 95,000 people, at least half Orthodox, by Schnall’s estimate.
This month, after fire destroyed a single-family home, the Ocean County sheriff said that it was being used as an unauthorized dorm for as many as two dozen yeshiva students. Downtown, inspectors boarded up a commercial building four times, citing non-permitted use as a catering hall and Orthodox study center, only to see the plywood removed and the space reopened. The fifth board-up succeeded, backed by a planning-board ruling, said Steven Secare, the township attorney.
“The trend is going to continue into surrounding areas,” said David Holtz, 43, a Lakewood real-estate agent whose Orthodox clientele is drawn to low crime and sizable newer homes. Toms River residents who don’t want them, he said, are subscribing to “fear of the unknown,” and both Orthodox and secular communities need to abide one another.
Strong Campaign
That’s unlikely, according to Michael Dedominicis, a 40-year-old construction company owner who leads a social-media group called Toms River Strong that urges the town’s 91,000 residents not to sell. His account of dropping by a neighbor’s open house and being denied entry by its Orthodox listing agent is included in a 16-page report on real-estate canvassing issued by township officials Feb. 5.
“Where is the law in this situation?” Dedominicis said in an interview. “I have homeowners calling me, saying, ’They’re converting a three-car garage into bedrooms!’”
The opposition, he said, has nothing to do with dislike of Jews, but with a fear that Toms River will become like Lakewood’s more tattered sections, with cars parked on lawns, overgrown landscaping, trash piled at curbs and residents crowding single-family homes.
The Orthodox dominate Lakewood’s school board. Though most schoolchildren attend private religious school, the township provides free, gender-segregated busing, which helps account for about half of a $12 million budget deficit. Some Toms River residents fear a similar drain.
“I don’t have a problem with you,” Dedominicis said. “I do have a problem with you buying your house, renting it out and bleeding my services.”
On March 18, Toms River will start enforcing a cease-and-desist ordinance, fining door-to-door real-estate agents who solicit owners listed in a “do-not-knock" registry. If the number of for-sale signs on front lawns is any signal, though, homeowners have little confidence in the measure.
Michael Mortellito, 50, with two children college-bound, said this was a good time to scale down from a 6,000-square-foot house, with a resort-like in-ground pool, outdoor fireplace and annual property taxes of $17,000. He acted as his own agent, he said, listing for $850,000, and is under contract with an Orthodox couple.
“They’re the only ones buying,” Mortellito said by telephone. “You’re not going to stop them. They’re going to take the town over no matter what.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/orthodox-jews-set-sights-on-n-j-town-and-angry-residents-resist?cmpid=yhoo.headline
These days, though, most homeowners draw the blinds, retreating from brushes with a fast-growing Orthodox Jewish community that’s trying to turn a swath of suburban luxury 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Atlantic beaches into an insular enclave. The rub, a township inquiry found, is “highly annoying, suspicious and creepy” tactics used by some real-estate agents.
They show up on doorsteps to tell owners that if they don’t sell, they’ll be the only non-Orthodox around. Strangers, sometimes several to a car, shoot photos and videos. When they started pulling over to ask children which house was theirs, parents put an end to street-hockey games.
“It’s like an invasion,” said Thomas Kelaher, Toms River’s three-term mayor, who’s fielded complaints from the North Dover section since mid-2015.
“It’s the old throwback to the 1960s, when blockbusting happened in Philadelphia and Chicago with the African-American community -- ‘I want to buy your house. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.’ It scares the hell out of people.”
Scholarly Community
The upset has its roots in adjacent Lakewood, home to yeshivas including Beth Medrash Govoha, among the world’s biggest centers for Talmudic study. Scholars typically marry young and start large families that maintain strict gender roles and limit interaction with secular society.
Rabbi Avi Schnall, state director of Agudath Israel of America, which represents Orthodox Jews on political, social and religious issues, said a few sales agents “are overly aggressive and making a bad name for the others.” He declined to say whether anti-Semitism is at work, but said the “extent of the anger” in Lakewood’s neighboring towns is deep, fueling opposition to a learning center, a boarding school, dormitories and other proposals.
In 2014, Toms River accused Rabbi Moshe Gourarie of running a house of worship and community center in a residential area, an issue that in December drew more than 1,200 residents to a zoning hearing to raise concerns about traffic and property values.
“The residents are in an uproar not about the chabad so much, but about the real-estate canvassing,” said Gourarie’s attorney, Christopher Costa. Gourarie and his nonprofit outreach group have nothing to do with people looking for homes, and continue to seek permission to operate, he said.
“He’s been a little shocked to have 1,250 people object to what he’s been doing for 12 years,” Costa said. “Nothing has changed except for he’s suddenly being prosecuted.”
Separate World
The friction reflects increasing insularity among the most religious Jews worldwide. In Israel, the Haredi inhabit a largely separate social world, according to a Pew Research Center survey this month. They share few connections even with their fellow Jews and there is scant intermarriage; 89 percent of the Haredim surveyed said all or most of their close friends belonged to their own community.
Though just 10 percent of America’s 5.3 million Jewish adults identify themselves as Orthodox, they have much larger families than others of their religion, and “their share of the Jewish population will grow,” according to a 2015 Pew survey. Their conservatism could “shift the profile of American Jews in several areas, including religious beliefs and practices, social and political views and demographic characteristics.”
Lakewood, once a rural destination for Rockefellers and other industry titans, is now a land of synagogues, religious schools, kosher groceries and residential neighborhoods in the grip of minivan gridlock. It’s also a place testing the limits of zoning enforcement for 95,000 people, at least half Orthodox, by Schnall’s estimate.
This month, after fire destroyed a single-family home, the Ocean County sheriff said that it was being used as an unauthorized dorm for as many as two dozen yeshiva students. Downtown, inspectors boarded up a commercial building four times, citing non-permitted use as a catering hall and Orthodox study center, only to see the plywood removed and the space reopened. The fifth board-up succeeded, backed by a planning-board ruling, said Steven Secare, the township attorney.
“The trend is going to continue into surrounding areas,” said David Holtz, 43, a Lakewood real-estate agent whose Orthodox clientele is drawn to low crime and sizable newer homes. Toms River residents who don’t want them, he said, are subscribing to “fear of the unknown,” and both Orthodox and secular communities need to abide one another.
Strong Campaign
That’s unlikely, according to Michael Dedominicis, a 40-year-old construction company owner who leads a social-media group called Toms River Strong that urges the town’s 91,000 residents not to sell. His account of dropping by a neighbor’s open house and being denied entry by its Orthodox listing agent is included in a 16-page report on real-estate canvassing issued by township officials Feb. 5.
“Where is the law in this situation?” Dedominicis said in an interview. “I have homeowners calling me, saying, ’They’re converting a three-car garage into bedrooms!’”
The opposition, he said, has nothing to do with dislike of Jews, but with a fear that Toms River will become like Lakewood’s more tattered sections, with cars parked on lawns, overgrown landscaping, trash piled at curbs and residents crowding single-family homes.
The Orthodox dominate Lakewood’s school board. Though most schoolchildren attend private religious school, the township provides free, gender-segregated busing, which helps account for about half of a $12 million budget deficit. Some Toms River residents fear a similar drain.
“I don’t have a problem with you,” Dedominicis said. “I do have a problem with you buying your house, renting it out and bleeding my services.”
On March 18, Toms River will start enforcing a cease-and-desist ordinance, fining door-to-door real-estate agents who solicit owners listed in a “do-not-knock" registry. If the number of for-sale signs on front lawns is any signal, though, homeowners have little confidence in the measure.
Michael Mortellito, 50, with two children college-bound, said this was a good time to scale down from a 6,000-square-foot house, with a resort-like in-ground pool, outdoor fireplace and annual property taxes of $17,000. He acted as his own agent, he said, listing for $850,000, and is under contract with an Orthodox couple.
“They’re the only ones buying,” Mortellito said by telephone. “You’re not going to stop them. They’re going to take the town over no matter what.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/orthodox-jews-set-sights-on-n-j-town-and-angry-residents-resist?cmpid=yhoo.headline
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