When Attorney General Gurbir Grewal filed a civil rights suit against Jackson Township and its land use boards, he cited a repeat pattern of intentional targeting of the Orthodox community and its religious practices, through zoning restrictions and discriminatory policy and enforcement strategies.
Filed April 27, the suit was welcomed by state Jewish leaders who have long said Jackson’s growing Orthodox Jewish community has felt threatened. The suit cited many of their concerns, such as having their homes and religious services staked out by authorities. Jews were also claimed to have been subjected to discriminatory enactment of code provisions and ordinances, limiting such religious practices and rituals as communal prayer, erection of sukkahs and the establishment of eruvin, yeshivas and yeshiva dormitories.
Grewal’s filing names Jackson, its township council, zoning and planning boards and Mayor Michael Reina as defendants. Township attorney Greg McGuckin and Reina did not respond to The Jewish Link’s requests for comment.
“From Mahwah in the north to Jackson in the south, New Jersey Attorney General Grewal has stood up to protect religious freedom and has again shown he is a champion of fairness, defender of justice for all and a leader in fighting hate and antisemitism,” said Simon Wiesenthal Center Eastern Director Michael Cohen.
Grewal’s action followed a suit filed almost a year ago by the federal Department of Justice (DOJ), which remains unresolved, charging the township with having “extreme animus” toward the Orthodox community. The federal suit came after years of wrangling between Jewish leaders and township officials, resulting in a suit filed by Agudath Israel of America.
“Like all public servants, municipal officials have a duty to uphold the law, not weaponize it against specific groups because of what they believe or how they worship,” said Grewal said in a statement. “Today’s lawsuit should send that message to anyone in New Jersey who needs to hear it.”
At an April 27 council meeting that could be viewed virtually, McGuckin said “there was always a chance” a resolution could be reached with the DOJ and claimed Grewal’s office never reached out to the township before the suit was filed to inform it of its concerns or to try and reach an understanding. The state suit alleges that since about 2015, when the township began receiving complaints about the growing number of Orthodox Jews moving into the township, it began a campaign to impede those moves.
Nearby Lakewood is home to 50,000 Orthodox Jews and numerous synagogues and yeshivot, including “the largest yeshiva in the world,” and is “the hub of Orthodox Jewish life in New Jersey,” according to the suit. Jackson has 60,000 residents, according to the suit, which in its 35 pages lays out a pattern of bias, including slurs about Orthodox Jews from residents and township officials and harassment in an effort to keep the community from “becoming like Lakewood.”
In response to numerous resident complaints claiming there were prayer services being held in Orthodox homes between 2016 and 2020, the township developed a surveillance plan that continued for years, even though former township attorney Jean Cipriani warned them there were state legal and constitutional precedents allowing such gatherings of up to 25 people.
Business administrator Helene Schlegel complained after a two-week monitoring of one home that “we have already expended too many tax dollars on this one property to find there is no issue, many of these reports appear to be exaggerated, causing us unnecessary expense.”
In another email, she added, “We are wasting valuable time and money checking every complaint that comes in…We have other more serious issues, heroin drug houses, etc.”
The suit alleges that Jackson officials “openly sympathized” with resident grievances, citing in particular former zoning board member John Burrows who posted numerous Facebook messages attacking Orthodox Jews, including urging resistance to “the Lakewood medieval cult.”
Hateful resident rhetoric became amplified on social media with such statements as “[w]e need to get rid of them like Hitler did.”
It cites various examples of township officials encouraging and supporting residents’ complaints against Orthodox Jews, even as they admitted such complaints were largely unfounded and that significant resources had been wasted on enforcement without discovering any significant ordinance violations.
Among the discriminatory actions cited are requiring Jews to apply for a “development permit to erect a new building or structure” in order to build a sukkah, amending the enforcement code in 2017 to prevent eruvin, although there had previously been eruvin for six or seven years around the township. Also that same year the council passed an ordinance banning religious schools in nearly all the township’s zoning districts and prohibited dormitories in the entire municipality,
The suit noted that former Councilman Kenneth Bressi, who was council representative on the planning board, had subsequently stated that the motivation was in part to keep Orthodox Jews from moving to Jackson.
Among the other misconduct by township officials cited by the suit was Reina at a “meet the mayor” event allegedly urging residents not to sell their homes to preserve the town’s character.
According to news reports and a leaked audio recording, when Reina was asked in 2019 by former Ocean County Republican Party chair George Gilmore, “If these were churches would we be fighting them?” the mayor replied, “Absolutely not.”
In another instance, former Councilman Robert Nixon responded sympathetically to a resident who felt officials were letting the town become “rundown like Lakewood” assuring the resident, “As a resident I feel the same way and I can assure you my fellow members of council are 100 percent on the same page.”
Officials were also involved in groups such as Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods (CUPON), which has opposed development efforts by Orthodox Jews to preserve “the quality of life” in Jackson, and Jackson NJ Strong.
Also mentioned is Rise Up Ocean County, a group that had been accused of fostering anti-Semitism and claimed on its website that it was founded, “on the simple belief that the continued, unchecked growth in Lakewood is contributing to diminished quality of life in the surrounding communities of Toms River, Jackson, Brick and Howell,” and said its battles emphasize strict compliance with local zoning ordinances.
However, after requests from Governor Phil Murphy and Grewal, its Facebook page, which had 18,000 followers, was banned more than a year ago from the platform for violating its terms of service by fomenting racism and antisemitism.
Two years ago the township council refused to adopt a resolution condemning Rise Up Ocean County, passed by the Ocean County Board Freeholders, now the board of commissioners, and other surrounding municipalities.
By Debra Rubin
