Federal lawsuit accuses town of discriminating against Orthodox Jews
Jackson Township, New Jersey. Image by Google Maps
(JTA) — The U.S. Justice Department has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a New Jersey township over zoning restrictions that allegedly target the Orthodox Jewish community.
The lawsuit accuses the Township of Jackson and its Planning Board of violating the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and the Fair Housing Act by passing zoning ordinances that restrict religious schools and bar religious boarding schools.
Eric Dreiband, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, called it “anti-Semitic conduct.”
“Using zoning laws to target Orthodox Jewish individuals for intentional discrimination and exclude them from a community is illegal and utterly incompatible with this Nation’s values,” Dreiband said in a statement issued by the Justice Department. “Let me be clear. The Department of Justice will use the full force of its authority to stop such anti-Semitic conduct and prevent its recurrence.”
According to the complaint, two ordinances passed by the South Jersey township and its Planning Board expressly prohibit dormitories throughout Jackson, making it impossible for religious boarding schools such as Orthodox yeshivas to operate there. But the Planning Board has since approved, without requiring a variance, plans for two nonreligious projects with dorm-type housing.
The complaint further alleges that the township and Planning Board enacted the ordinances against a backdrop of extreme animus by some Jackson residents and township decision-makers toward the Orthodox community and a movement by residents to keep Orthodox Jews from settling in Jackson, according to the Justice Department.
Jackson, a Shore town with about 55,000 residents, borders Lakewood, a township of some 104,000 with a large haredi Orthodox population.
The post Federal lawsuit accuses New Jersey township of discriminating against Orthodox Jews through zoning laws appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
