New Jersey Residents Keep Trying To Kick Orthodox Jews Out Of City Parks
Image by Nikki Casey
By Aiden Pink April 25, 2019
After a resident of Brick Township in central New Jersey complained on Twitter to mayor John Ducey on Tuesday about the city’s parks and beaches being “invaded by the hasidic and orthodox jews,” Ducey’s response was to recommend that she call the police.
A constituent tweets at the Mayor of Brick Township, New Jersey about parks and beaches being “invaded by the Hasidic and Orthodox Jews and being ruined.”
The Mayor responds about parks security but makes no mention of the tweeters anti-Semitic tone. pic.twitter.com/p2KblpeQzF
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) April 24, 2019
Ducey was the subject of criticism from people who said he should have condemned her prejudice – which he later did, adding that no police were ever called.
But this is not the first time local leaders in New Jersey have tacitly or officially worked to remove a growing population of visibly religious Jews from city parks and other public areas.
In 2017, the city of Mahwah, on the state’s norther border, was the subject of controversy after it passed an ordinance banning out-of-city residents from using public parks – which many believed to be targeting Orthodox Jews living in neighboring towns.
The city also banned eruvs – strings often tied to utility poles, creating an artificial boundary within which religious Jews can carry things on the Sabbath.
A year later, after pressure from the state government, the city repealed the park law and overturned its eruv ban.
The more recent incident occurred around 90 miles south in Brick Township, which neighbors the majority-Orthodox and fast-growing township of Lakewood, home to one of the largest yeshivas in the world. Complaints about the growing visibly religious population in Lakewood have spread on social media, including comments like “We need to get rid of them like Hitler did” – leading the state’s attorney general to request that Facebook investigate such comments and groups that hold them.
Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor for the Forward. You can reach him at [email protected]
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
