Growth of Orthodox Jewish Population Stirs A Growing Divide in New Jersey Town

c. 2006 Religion News Service LAKEWOOD, N.J. _ People here are watching. In the century-old downtown, Orthodox Jewish men watch Mexican men standing impassively on the corners. The Mexicans watch the ground, carefully ignoring Orthodox women hurrying by in long skirts and wigs. The police watch everyone. It is a daily dance of uneasy co-existence […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

LAKEWOOD, N.J. _ People here are watching.

In the century-old downtown, Orthodox Jewish men watch Mexican men standing impassively on the corners. The Mexicans watch the ground, carefully ignoring Orthodox women hurrying by in long skirts and wigs. The police watch everyone.


It is a daily dance of uneasy co-existence in a town that has undergone rapid racial and cultural transformation. Once a cosmopolitan mix _ black, white and Hispanic, Christian and Jew _ Lakewood is now home to one of the largest concentrations of fervently Orthodox Jews in America.

The new majority is flexing its muscle.

In only a few years it has taken control of the mayor’s office and school, zoning and planning boards. Yeshiva-schooled children now outnumber public school students by nearly 3-1, and traditionally black and Hispanic neighborhoods are giving way to Orthodox expansion.

The streets that old-timers remember as a mix of cultures are now crowded with men in black suits, white shirts and black fedoras hurrying to and from prayers, often pushing baby carriages. Few women wear pants in Lakewood anymore, because the ultra-Orthodox say Judaism forbids it. Weekday traffic, normally appalling, disappears on Saturday because nearly 60 percent of the population cannot drive on the Jewish Sabbath.

Residents increasingly see crime and other problems through the prism of race and religion.

The recent assault on a black teenager by an Orthodox teacher set both groups on edge. A controversial Orthodox neighborhood watch group was formed; lawsuits have been filed by and against the Orthodox community; state and federal authorities are investigating allegations of discrimination in housing and education; and the township last year reported the highest number of bias crimes in the state.

“What balance we had in town is gone, and there’s bound to be resentment from the have-nots, who are being pushed out,” said state Sen. Robert Singer, who is also a Lakewood councilman and Jewish, but not Orthodox.

“The ultra-Orthodox are now the driving force in Lakewood, which is not necessarily a bad thing,” Singer said. “But pretty soon Lakewood will consist of the ultra-religious, senior citizens and those who are trapped here because they’re too poor to get out.”

Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, who often speaks for a council of local Orthodox leaders, says they have no agenda to drive anyone out of Lakewood and shouldn’t be blamed “just because our influence is everywhere.”

“We are the majority and we are growing at an accelerated pace, but there was never a conscious movement to take more than our share,” he said.


Already an established resort when it was incorporated in 1893, the 25-square-mile township of Lakewood had world-class hotels and estates, including those of John D. Rockefeller and George J. Gould.

The resort industry faded by the time Holocaust refugee Rabbi Aharon Kotler started the rabbinical college Beth Medrash Govoha _ now called the “Harvard of yeshivas” _ in 1943 with 13 students.

Over the next 40 years, the rural outskirts of Lakewood became home to retirement communities and the state’s second-largest industrial park. Residential neighborhoods developed around local colleges. The downtown blossomed, then withered as businesses were lured to the malls.

For the U.S. bicentennial in 1976, Lakewood town fathers commissioned a giant mural that still hangs in the courtroom in the municipal building. It portrays a rainbow of ethnicities and religions. Of 125 people depicted in the mural, three are Orthodox Jews.

By the early 1990s, however, a change began. BMG became the largest yeshiva in America. Students who historically left Lakewood after finishing their studies decided to stay. They married, had families and built an Orthodox infrastructure that in turn attracted more Orthodox.

Today there are an estimated 45,000 Orthodox Jews in Lakewood, according to Meir Lichtenstein, 36, who in January became Lakewood’s first ultra-Orthodox mayor.


The ultra-Orthodox primarily account for a population that nearly doubled in 15 years, and increased between 25 percent and 40 percent in the last five years, according to local officials, who claim the actual township population is at least 10,000 higher than the 2005 Census estimate of 75,000.

The Orthodox vote is large, estimated at 10,000, which is enough to sway any local election, the mayor said.

The only other population growth, according to estimates from local officials, has been an influx of 12,000 to 15,000 undocumented Mexicans.

Aside from about a dozen Latino businesses, downtown is kosher. There are Orthodox butchers, doctors, tailors, cleaners, dentists, hairdressers, florists and realtors.

There are Orthodox social service agencies, meals on wheels, an ambulance squad and patient advocates at the local hospital.

The newcomers are buying out traditionally non-Jewish neighborhoods by offering homeowners more than market value, said the Rev. Thompson E. Simpson, pastor of the Intercessory Tabernacle Ministries Church.


The Pentecostal church was in Lakewood’s black neighborhood. Now the church overlooks upscale new houses owned by Orthodox families.

Simpson said the black community used to admire the Orthodox “when they were just another minority. They were united and understand the system. But it doesn’t feel so good when there’s nothing left for anybody else.”

Weisberg said this is unfair.

“We are concerned about the trend of taking minor incidents and building a scenario of a conspiracy,” Weisberg said. “We are tired of everything being an `Orthodox’ thing.”

Twenty years ago, most of the Jews in Lakewood were Reform or Conservative and sent their children to the public high school. Today, the vast majority are Haredi, the most theologically rigorous form of Judaism.

Like Hassic Jews, Haredi Jews are extremely insular and adhere to strict dress and dietary laws. They trace their belief system directly back to Moses and consider non-Orthodox denominations to be unacceptable deviations from authentic Judaism.

It is a closed culture dedicated to religious study and family. Marriages may be arranged, and large families _ eight to 12 children _ are encouraged.


“Let’s be realistic,” Singer said. “The Orthodox have done a lot for this community, but they are never going to be part of this community. Unfortunately, people fear and resent what they don’t understand.”

A soft-spoken, serious man who is highly regarded in both the Jewish and the non-Jewish communities, Lichtenstein, the mayor, admitted that it is difficult to balance the demands of different groups.

“I’m the civil face of the Orthodox community, but I am not an ambassador,” he said. “The Orthodox must keep separate. It has created tension. I can only hope people will try to understand.”

KE/JL END PEET

(Judy Peet writes for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

Editors: To obtain three photos from Lakewood, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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