First Amendment Activist is in Danger. Lakewood is a War Zone. Litvaks Attack Hassidim? A Load of Nonsense…

When Harming Another Becomes An Indoctrinated Acceptable Practice, Religious Belief Has Little Value

Published 5.13.21 10:33 am, edited 5.16.21 6:07pm

Dear Readers:

Before we begin, we had contemplated whiting out the faces of the children in the photos below. But they are published and we decided we would follow the lead of the publication. The children and parents, it would seem, take such pride in their behavior.

The story is not about the “Litvaks versus the Hasidim. That is a load of “Chara” put out as poor excuse to enshroud deeply violent behavior. The violence is against one family, that of First Amendment Activist. It is intended to shut him up. And, in our view, there is little difference between indoctrinating your children to violently terrorize a family or strapping a bomb to their waists and telling them to explode it where it can cause the most damage – all for a cause – religion.

We have relied on facts presented by First Amendment Activist, a fellow blogger and journalist looking out for the well-being of his friends, family and Jewish brethren in Lakewood, Toms River and Ocean County, New Jersey. A fact-check of FAA’s material is nothing if not accurate. Scary thing for a community that wants to keep its dirty laundry out of plain sight.

EVERYONE, bar none, should be thankful for his advocacy in New Jersey. What the protesters are doing is not a “great goal” as stated by a Rebbitzin in the article below. These children, encouraged by their parents, are treacherous savages trying to silence a blogger and activist.

First Amendment Activist is a deeply religious person, with a steady ethical and moral set of views and standards grounded in a belief in G-d, family and country. He should be declared a hero in his community. Instead, he is now being treated as a Pariah. Sadly, the hierarchy of police, government, the mayor, the governing bodies are doing nothing to assist him as he gets his house “egged” on a daily basis, as he gets ostracized and as his family gets threatened with violence. All in the name of G-d? No. All in the name of covering up crimes committed in the name of G-d. That is nothing if not G-dless.

The responsible parties of these children who find pleasure in violence, are parents who have taught their children that this behavior is okay, acceptable, if not encouraged. Religious, allegedly devout parents are teaching their children that violence is to be rewarded. The JNews which published this story has it all wrong. The “Litvaks versus the Hassidim” story is not the reason for these young thugs to behave as they are behaving.

Yes. The Litvaks and the Hassidim in Ocean County, generally and Lakewood, particularly, are not allied. They are engaged in their own version of a holy war. But the reality of the story has little to do with that battle. The story should have been focused on the utter savagery being imparted upon one family. It is covered under a shroud of this holy war. And that is a lie.

To the parents of the children pictured in the below, public clips, you should be ashamed of yourselves, teaching your children that “egging” houses, that calling someone a “moser” is okay. The children are dressed as G-d faring disciples. Sadly, the children suffer the sins of the parents and they are nothing, if not thugs and hoodlums bullying and endorsing violence.

Lakewood, NJ Welfare Fraud, Why Are there Still no Indictments?

 

Four of the 26 members of a community who were arrested in alleged multi-million dollar welfare fraud

https://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2018/07/still_no_indictments_in_alleged_lakewood_welfare_s.html

Still no indictments 1 year after Lakewood welfare fraud sweep

 

By The Associated Press

 

More than a year after 26 members of Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community were arrested and charged with under-reporting income to qualify for welfare payments, no indictments have been handed up.

Authorities tell The Asbury Park Press that’s because the cases are complex. Normally, indictments follow the filing of charges by about four months.

Prosecutors say the accused, which includes 12 couples, illegally obtained nearly $2 million in benefits by misrepresenting their income and failing to disclose income from numerous sources on applications for Medicaid, housing, Social Security and food assistance benefits.

The arrests raised tensions in the town of Lakewood, which has seen a large influx of ultra-Orthodox Jewish families. Among those arrested were a rabbi and the former leader of a Jewish religious school.

Incidents of vandalism were reported after the charges were announced in late June 2017. Flyers posted on cars around the town cited the arrests, and someone posted a banner containing an anti-Jewish slur on a Holocaust memorial in front of a synagogue.

Local officials said the arrests also created fear among some residents about participating in welfare programs. But while state officials reported a decrease in enrollment of about 2,600 people in the months after the arrests, Lakewood Mayor Raymond Coles told the newspaper that demand for housing programs remains the same. The U.S. Census estimates about one-third of township residents live below poverty level.

Edward Bertucio, an attorney representing Rabbi Zalmen Sorotzkin, told the newspaper the length of time since the arrests indicates “the government does not have a case.”

About half of the couples who were charged will seek to avoid jail by repaying the benefits and satisfying other conditions under a pretrial diversion program available to first-time offenders, according to the newspaper.

Lakewood, New Jersey – Making the News… 11 Things to know… and When Will they get to Rockland County?

11 things to know about Lakewood, suddenly the newsiest town in N.J.

 

Once a stomping ground for the rich and famous, Lakewood is now in the news for the tensions growing around its burgeoning ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. The tensions have spread to neighboring towns, where residents have said they have been bombarded relentlessly with solicitations to purchase their homes.

The town’s school system is in crisis, with a deficit that threatens to cause layoffs in the public schools while most of the school-age children in town attend private religious schools.

Now the town is in the headlines again as seven couples, including a rabbi and his wife, were arrested this week and charged with stealing more than $2 million in federal and state aid by hiding their actual financial assets. More arrests are expected.

Here’s a closer look at what has been happening in Lakewood:

Shimon Nussbaum is taken to a police vehicle after he and and his wife and Yocheved Nussbaum were arrested Monday, June 26, 2017, in connection with a public-assistance fraud scheme in Lakwood, N.J. Their arrest was part of a larger operation, led by federal and state authorities, that netted the arrests of six others. (Peter Ackerman/The Asbury Park Press via AP)

 

1. Fraud arrests

Federal and state authorities this week, in two separate raids, arrested seven Lakewood couples and accused them of defrauding government assistance programs out of more than $2 million over five years by collecting benefits to which they were not entitled.

Authorities allege the couples received Medicaid, SNAP food assistance, housing assistance and Social Security benefits by lying about the amount of their income. Two of the couples allegedly hid $1.5 million each while collecting tens of thousands in welfare benefits.

2. Population

Lakewood’s population has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past several decades and Orthodox Jews make up 60 percent of the residents. The town, which has the second largest (behind Brooklyn) Orthodox Jewish community on the East Coast, grew from a total population of 45,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 in 2016.

3. Building boom

To accommodate the rapid influx of residents, the town has undergone a building boom over the past few decades. In 2016, it had the most new-home construction in the state. That’s when 710 permits were issued — 560 for one- and two- family homes and another 150 for multi-family homes. Covering 25 square miles, Lakewood has more than 80 synagogues.

4. Tax exempt organizations

With so much of Lakewood centered on the Orthodox Jewish community, the town has more than 100 yeshivas and more than 80 synagogues. Because they’re considered religious, they’re exempt from paying property taxes. Lakewood has about 350 properties that fit into this category for this community, officials have said. That’s led some residents to complain that the town is not getting enough in taxes to cover the cost of essential services and infrastructure.

5. State monitor

The state Department of Education stepped in when Lakewood’s board of education failed to close annual budget deficits. While it’s not considered a full takeover, the state in 2014 appointed a monitor and a team of others to oversee the district and its finances. The monitor is still in place.

6. Busing crisis

Faced with a nearly $15 million budget shortfall, Lakewood’s board of education the end of this school year fired nearly 150 teachers and staff and eliminated all sports programs. At the root of the problem, the superintendent has said, is its busing expenses. Lakewood public schools have 6,000 students but the town also has another 30,000 students who go to private yeshivas. That transportation costs the school district $24.5 million. Schools Superintendent Laura Winters asked the state Department of Education for help — in the form of $10 million. The state kicked in $8.5 million, helping to get the budget approved this week by the state monitor. The budget so far calls for reinstating nearly all of those targeted for layoffs and keeping the soccer and track programs only. The township has agreed to pay for the football program and the district says it will try to find a way to reinstate other sports programs to the public schools.

7. Development struggles

With so much development within Lakewood’s borders, residents have complained building and planning codes are not being enforced, leading to overcrowding. In March 2016, the issue came to light when an illegal dormitory for a yeshiva was destroyed by fire. The owner was cited for illegal change of use for converting a single family home into a dormitory.

8. Tension with neighboring towns

As some in the Orthodox Jewish community have been looking to expand out of Lakewood, residents of neighboring communities have complained they feel pressured into selling their homes or accepting dormitories in neighborhoods they say are not zoned for that purpose. Strong opposition to a proposed dormitory in Ocean Township and an all-girls yeshiva in Jackson are being waged in court. In response to residents’ complaints about relentless pressure from some sales agents seeking properties on behalf of Orthodox Jewish clients, Toms River passed an ordinance prohibiting those types of solicitations in neighborhoods closest to its border with Lakewood.

9. Beepers Plus

A federal investigation into the owner of an electronics business in Lakewood helped lead authorities to the welfare fraud case, a law enforcement source has told The Star-Ledger. The source had said some of the defendants arrested on Monday transferred money through Beepers Plus, a business in Lakewood owned by Yisroel Malamud. In February, Malamud pleaded guilty in federal court to running an unlicensed money transmitting business through his store. Admitting he accepted a fee for transferring customers’ money to a third party, Malamud was responsible for transferring at least $3.5 million between June 2010 and May 2015, court documents say. His sentencing was scheduled for June 1 but has been pushed back to October.

10. Previous Medicaid fraud

This week’s arrests weren’t the first Medicaid fraud allegations against members of Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community. In 2015, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office charged another Lakewood couple with defrauding government assistance programs by lying on their applications for Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) to get more than $151,000 in benefits combined between November 2010 and July 2013.

Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, said this was among a series of arrests made in 2015 that stimulated Prosecutor Joseph Coronato to make a presentation to Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community about welfare fraud.

11. Another Lakewood black eye

The Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood suffered an embarrassment in 2015 when a prominent rabbi, Mendel Epstein, was convicted along with two others of conspiracy in a scheme to torture husbands until they granted their wives divorces. Epstein, who specialized in religious divorces, was convicted in federal court of conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

To read the article as written click, here.

Guadagno Secured NJ Lakewood’s Bloc Vote – and at What Price, her Soul Perhaps?

 

VOTE AGAINST KIM GUADAGNO!!!

 

Rullo: Guadagno “Sold Her Soul”; Secures Powerful Lakewood Orthodox Bloc Vote

http://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2017/06/rullo-guadagno-sold-her-soul-secures-powerful-lakewood-orthodox-bloc-vote/

LAKEWOOD-The influential political power brokers of Lakewood Township,  the Lakewood Vaad, have announced Kim Guadagno as their candidate of choice for governor of New Jersey in Tuesday’s Republican primary election.

Photo of Kim Guadagno with New Jersey Orthodox leaders. Note: Her face was intentionally blurred according to a report. Click photo to read about that.

In a report yesterday on the political news website, Ocean County Politics, editor Gavin Rozzi broke the news through a video published by Lakewood’s “First Amendment Activist” of a robocall sent out by Rabbi Yisroel Schenkolewksi, one of the Vaad’s religious and political leaders.

In the call, Schenkolewksi urged Lakewood’s Orthodox voters that a vote for Guadagno, Lakewood’s large bloc vote remains powerful.

“Let us stop those who are trying to divide us and weaken us,” Schenkolewksi said.

Guadagno’s opponent in the election, Ocean County resident Joseph Rullo wondered what offers or promises Guadagno made to Lakewood in return for the endorsement.

“It’s so corrupt how one guy can cut a deal to get 13,000 votes for promises after elected in Lakewood,” Rullo said.  “Kim sold her soul….Lakewood is a sanctuary city with no rules.”

The news also doesn’t sit well with voters in the Republican stronghold of Ocean County where an ongoing confrontation exists between Lakewood’s growing Orthodox Jewish population and the surrounding gentile townships of Jackson, Brick, Toms River and Howell where Rullo is showing strong against Guadagno and the other Republican establishment candidates.

In a new SaveJersey poll, a shore area conservative blog site, Rullo is leading the pack with 41% of voters.  Rival conservative Steve Rogers polled with 22% with Guadagno and her establishment arch-nemesis Jack Ciattarelli trailing with just 14% and 16% respectively.

In the latest Shore News Network poll, consisting mostly of Ocean County residents, Rullo received 51% of the votes and Guadagno 27.8%.   Ciattarelli (8%), Singh (7%) and Rogers (5%) all trailed.

Rullo hopes his conservative platform and open support of Donald Trump resonates with the New Jersey voters on Tuesday.  He backed the president in last November’s election and has been a staunch supporter of Trump since his announcement in 2015.

Rullo said he feels most of New Jersey’s Trump supporters will be behind him, while Guadagno, Ciattarelli and Singh compete over the balance of the establishment type voters in the state.

http://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2017/06/rullo-guadagno-sold-her-soul-secures-powerful-lakewood-orthodox-bloc-vote/

IF YOU ARE IN NEW JERSEY, USA – VOTE AGAINST GUADAGNO, SECURING THE BLOC VOTE IS PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE THAT HER SOUL HAS BEEN SOLD.

Lakewood Schools – Religion Trumping Public Education – Where is the Outrage?

EDITORIAL: Where’s outrage over Lakewood?

http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorials/2017/04/07/lakewood-orthodox-school-funding/100185464/

When are the officials who are elected to represent all their constituents going to address the funding inequities and unequal treatment of the taxpayers and public schoolchildren in Lakewood? Where have state Sen. Bob Singer, Rep. Chris Smith, Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez been on this issue?

Absolutely nowhere. Thanks to the money and power of the Orthodox community, they have done nothing to address problems that could be easily resolved if they had the courage to speak up and the integrity to represent all of their constituencies equally.

Over the past couple of weeks, readers have been exposed to two more disturbing stories about Lakewood schools. The district faces a $15 million budget deficit, the possible layoffs of more than 100 teachers and deep program cuts. And the director of the School for Children with Hidden Intelligence (SCHI), Rabbi Osher Eisemann, was indicted on theft and money laundering charges involving more than $630,000 in public school funds.

It’s a disgrace — two more in the steady drip, drip of outrages that characterize a school district that has had to squeeze resources and programs to accommodate the ever-expanding needs of the Orthodox community’s private schools.

The sad part is that there is virtually nothing in the works in Trenton to correct any of it. Without vocal, organized pressure from the nonOrthodox community inside Lakewood and in the communities surrounding it, there is no reason to believe things won’t get progressively worse.

MORE: Jackson dorm ban: What the residents are saying

MORE: Letter: Lakewood’s problem isn’t anti-Semitism, it’s growth

Why should anyone who lives outside of Lakewood care? First, everyone should be outraged by the injustice that it is taking place in Lakewood’s predominantly minority public schools. Second, the population pressures in Lakewood could, over time, eventually spill over into neighboring towns — something public officials and growing numbers of residents in those town are becoming increasingly conscious of.

If Singer, Christie and other legislators with the ability to influence what goes on in Lakewood had an interest in righting the wrongs there, here are five things they could do that would help:

•The state school funding formula is a mess. But changes proposed by Christie’s “Fair Funding formula” would likely make matters worse. Those suggested by Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli would be an improvement, but would not fundamentally address the unique circumstances confronting Lakewood — specifically, the fact that the busing costs to transport 30,000 Orthodox children to private schools and the extraordinary $97,000 per-pupil cost to educate special education students at SCHI in Lakewood absorb about 40 percent of the school district’s $90 million budget.

No other towns in New Jersey have similar public school budget stresses attributable to the prevalence of private schools within their boundaries. Lakewood is a special circumstance. It requires an aid formula that takes the special circumstances into account.

MORE: Lakewood yeshiva enrollment up 20 percent

MORE: Lakewood committee stands from on free trash pickup 

•Offset the undue influence of the Orthodox community on the school board by requiring that a majority of its members have children in the public school system. Right now, the Orthodox members — all of whom send their children to private Orthodox schools — are in the majority, and decisions they make often are at odds with what is best for non-Orthodox public school students.

•Draft courtesy busing legislation that ends the practice in Lakewood of having separate bus runs to private schools for girls and boys, which dramatically increases the courtesy busing tab. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for segregated busing. The Legislature also should reconsider the cost benefit of any courtesy busing.

•Require that private schools be certified by the state in order to be eligible for state funding. Unless basic educational, facilities, health and safety standards are being met, the state should not be providing funding assistance.

•Establish specific criteria and spending caps for private special education schools such as SCHI, where the $97,000 per-student cost is far higher than similar private schools. What is the justification? The short answer: There is none. What SCHI says it needs to implement its program, SCHI gets, on the taxpayers’ dime. The indictment of the school’s director should provide extra incentive to make sure money is being spent wisely and for the stated purpose.

At the same time, the state must ensure that the students who are enrolled at SCHI are representative of the community as a whole. Historically, they have been almost exclusively Orthodox. The state needs to ensure that placements there by Lakewood’s child study teams are based entirely on need.

Some of the valid criticisms about the inequities in the school district have been wrongly directed toward state monitor Michael Azzara. There is only so much he can do. He is bound by existing rules and hamstrung by public officials who have shown no inclination to address the problems.

Editorials, letters to the editors and complaints at public meetings aren’t likely to change the trajectory in Lakewood. Putting direct pressure on lawmakers who can change the rules of the game and challenging in court some of the rules that allow the situation to persist offer the only hope for relief — and justice.

Write, email and phone Singer, Smith, Christie, Booker and Menendez, and demand action. Otherwise, expect more of the same — and worse.

 

 

Proposed Jewish Jail, No Boarding School

 

Ocean Township and Jewish Boarding School Battle, Religion Should Be Removed From the Discussion and Neighborhood Character the Focus

April 26, 2016

For the second time, a zoning board in Ocean Township New Jersey has denied a permit for a 96 bed boarding school. The Mayor of the community argue that it will change the face of a residential community. The school administrators claim that the purpose of the institution is to seclude the residents, ages 18-22, from the distractions of modern life. The students will not be permitted to leave the premises or even open the windows.

It is hard to argue, value judgments withstanding, that such an institution would not resemble a prison, reform school or mental institution.  Technically it would be similar to a small college, though wholly unregulated. It’s likely not consistent with the personality of the neighborhood and would not be regardless of racial, religious or ethnic purpose.

Shore town denies application for Jewish boarding school — again

“Prior to the judge’s order, the application had gone through more than a year’s worth of public meetings, that at times drew crowds of more than 1,000 residents. A July 15, 2015, meeting was adjourned after the township’s fire marshal said the high school’s auditorium was at more than max capacity.

The meetings were then moved to the school’s gymnasium, and also simulcast on a television screen in the cafeteria.

Residents have said the Yeshiva school will change the makeup of the family-oriented neighborhood and drive down property values. The applicant has contended that the students will be isolated to the property, and focus solely on their Talmudic studies.

The school, located at 1515 Logan Road, is currently a Yeshiva day school. Applications to turn it into a boarding school have been submitted in past years, but were withdrawn.

The school is temporarily located in Lakewood, home to the nation’s largest Yeshiva school and a booming Orthodox Jewish population.

The Yeshiva’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Lessin, has said that he wants the school to be permanently located in Ocean Township, located about 20 miles north of Lakewood, so that the students don’t get distracted by friends and family.

On Monday night, Zoning Board officials repeatedly stated that their opposition to the application has never been about religion, and is more about the intensity of the application and the restrictions that would be placed on the 96 students.

In a statement read at the meeting, Chairman Warren Goode said the restrictions that would be on the students — no smoking, outdoor activities, the windows must be closed at all times — are “at best difficult to enforce.”

During the public portion of the meeting, a couple Ocean Township residents compared the restrictions to that of a jail.

“I think prisoners in jail have more rights than these young men,” said Irene Roake, an Ocean Township resident.

But attorneys representing the applicant contend the application is protected under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, or RLUIPA, which protects religious organizations from being discriminated against in zoning and landmark cases.”