A former counselor at a summer camp run by a yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J., wants to withdraw his guilty plea on charges of sexually abusing a male camper. Yosef Kolko, 39, pleaded guilty in May, on the third day of his trial, to aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and child endangerment…
A Federal Communications Commission commissioner has proposed sweeping reforms to the E-Rate program, a school and library technology subsidy that was the subject of two Forward exposes this year. The proposed changes to the program, announced by Republican FCC commissioner Ajit Pai at the American Enterprise Institute on July 16, would entirely reshape how the…
A former yeshiva teacher in the Orthodox town of Lakewood, N.J., Yeshiva teacher today admitted sexually abusing a boy after two more victims of his came forward to accuse him, authorities told the Asbury Park Press. Yosef Kolko pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and child endangerment, and was…
A federally backed program subsidizing Internet access for low-income students has committed more money to schools in the heavily Orthodox Jewish town of Lakewood, N.J. in recent years than to schools in any other municipality in the entire state. Yet after several years of participating in the E-Rate subsidy program, Lakewood’s schools report having far…
Shortly after being sworn in for his first term in January, Lakewood’s mayor, Albert Akerman, visited “Tent City,” an encampment of about 100 homeless people living in a densely wooded area of township land — a rare slice of open space in the fastest-growing municipality in New Jersey. Akerman, an Orthodox Jew originally from the…
In this week’s Reporters Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward fellow Seth Berkman to discuss his story about a tent city in Lakewood, New Jersey a town with a large, dominant Orthodox community. Then, Naomi Zeveloff drops by to discuss her story about a professor whose professional relationship with a student devolved…
Amid the widespread devastation on New Jersey’s Atlantic Ocean shore following Hurricane Sandy, there was a tale of two Jewish towns as they each marked the sabbath. In Deal, a borough of about 1,000 residents — most of them upper income Syrian Jews — the streets were eerily quiet as the Sabbath approached. Neither the…
About 18,000 families in the Orthodox town of Lakewood, N.J. reportedly remained without power Wednesday after it took a nearly direct hit from superstorm Sandy. Just 10% of the 20,000 who lost power had their electricity restored by Wednesday morning, the Lakewood Scoop site reported. For the few gas stations in town that were operating,…
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