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…
Senator Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who at 89 is the U.S. Senate’s oldest member, said on Thursday he will not seek re-election next year. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a fellow Democrat, is seen as a front-runner to replace Lautenberg, a self-made multimillionaire businessman who became a leading liberal voice in the Senate. In…
When New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey stepped down from office in 2004 in a gay sex scandal, he became another disgraced politician brought down by his own actions. Since then, the former Democratic governor, now 55, has tried to step out of the spotlight after a messy divorce from his second wife by swapping politics…
Cory Booker, the New Jersey mayor who is a rising star in the Democratic party, filed documents on Friday revealing his intention to run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, possibly setting up a primary challenge against 88-year-old Democratic incumbent Frank Lautenberg Booker, the 43-year-old mayor of Newark, announced in December he would “explore the…
A number of New York synagogues that were seriously damaged by Hurricane Sandy are not only facing mounting repair costs, but also have limited assets available to make the necessary fixes to sustain their congregations. Using lists from federations, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty and other local organizations, the Forward surveyed more than 87…
A flooded warehouse, decomposed wall beams, sodden sheetrock, crumbling brick walls, a fried electrical system and about $2 million worth of rotten cheese waiting to be chucked: That’s only a glimpse of the woes facing Brigitte Mizrahi. Mizrahi owns Anderson International Foods, a small kosher cheese company she founded in 1995, and her warehouse is…
At 4 p.m. on Monday, October 29, as Hurricane Sandy’s powerful wind gusts buffeted the trees surrounding our home, I Tweeted, half jokingly, that maybe 2012 was the wrong year to move to New Jersey. One week later, with night-time temperatures plunging to 30 degrees, and still no power to heat or light our home,…
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