Last week, The Jewish Link published an important story on our cover, entitled “Linden’s Jews Object to Proposed Zoning Ordinance.” It was written by our longtime reporter Debra Rubin; it took several weeks for it to see the light of day because much of the activity happened right before the Pesach holiday began and we generally don’t print the paper during Chol Hamoed.
One important editorial note about the article was that in an early draft, Rubin correctly referred to the Jews of Linden, throughout the article, as Chasidic. The article did not share from which Chasidic movement the Jews of Linden originated, though another article, published also last week, in Mishpacha, indicated that the Rebbe of Kosson came to Linden from Brooklyn in 2017, and many of his followers have since joined him. This fact adds historical detail and a cultural explanation for the influx in Jews to the city over the past five years, but it does not and should not give leave for Linden’s leadership to target anyone with aggressive zoning laws, which began about five years ago.
“Big hats and curls” or not, as slurred by Linden Mayor Derek Armstead last year as part of a civil suit, should not prevent Jews from living comfortably in the homes they have purchased.
For this reason, I, along with my colleagues, decided to remove the word “chasidic” from the article and change it simply to “Jews,” to clarify and drill down the importance of what was happening in Linden, which is actionable, antisemitic discrimination. We have in the past similarly replaced words such as “ultra-Orthodox,” “charedi,” and even “Reform” or “secular” from civic or political articles, unless there is a specific reason that they be kept.
After the article’s publication, we received press releases about Linden’s proposed zoning laws from Agudath Israel, stating they are opening an investigation into the charges. We also received a letter from a reader, not a Linden resident, asking why we left out a “key detail” by omitting that Linden’s Jewish residents are Chasidic. The reader asked for an explanation, and I hope this will suffice. Not only do I disagree that “chasidic” is a key detail, I want to explain why it is important that our own media sources not seek to divide Jews into segments in public, secular life. I don’t think it matters in court where a Jew comes from in America, or what they wear. What matters is whether they are legally enabled to live their lives in peace and in whatever comfort they can afford, just like every American, and build synagogues and associated community institutions as they desire and can afford.
When it comes down to it, I want every reader of our paper to know that there are laws in our country that are designed to protect residents from unconstitutional overreaches. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment, the Fair Housing Act and RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act), the last of which was enacted in 2000, are codified to protect religious spaces; RLUIPA, specifically, guards religious accommodation in land use matters including from construction permitting and zoning overreach by local authorities. It has been tested many, many times, and I have written about tests of this law at least a dozen times over my decade of working at The Jewish Link, most often with significant quotes from the legal experts and advocates at Weil, Gotshal and Manges, LLP, a law firm with the most experience nationally with these types of cases.
Many local authorities over the last 25 years who tried to use zoning ordinances to prevent houses of worship from being built or completed—including synagogues, mosques and churches—have been found to be out of compliance with RLUIPA, even though, in some cases, litigation has dragged on for years.
The charges leveled at Linden’s city council in our article and in Mishpacha were identical. The concerns that brought Linden’s Jews out, 400 strong, to a city council meeting on the Erev Shabbat before Pesach, was that Linden was continuing an attempt to zone Jewish life out of the town. The fact that Mishpacha chose to describe Linden’s Jews in their Yom Tov finery, replete with “resplendent shtreimlach and beketshes,” was an editorial description, which, while certainly colorful, has no legal standing.
In her Jewish Link article, Rubin reported that new zoning laws, about which the city’s attorney advised council members against discussing in public, would discourage large families from settling in Linden by prohibiting the construction of bedrooms and bathrooms in basements, requiring significantly larger garage and driveway space, and counting deck areas toward a home’s total square footage. Rabbi Yossi Katz of Congregation Anshe Chesed was quoted in the article, saying that this was part of a pattern of zoning laws that are effectively attempting to block Jews from living comfortably in the town, in fact with the city editing its zoning laws annually for the last several years.
For example, the city amended its zoning code to prohibit the establishment of houses of worship in residential zones several years ago. To accomplish this, the zoning code was changed from a required minimum lot size of 25,000 square feet to build a house of worship to 75,000 and then to 90,000 square feet, making it impossible to build a synagogue since no available lots of that size exist in residential areas. Another ordinance banned combining lots, ensuring that no new synagogues could be built at all.
Rabbi Katz also referred to high-rise buildings erected in Linden with city approval in recent years that have changed the small town character of the city. Therefore, when Armstead and council members and staff argue that they are “preserving the local character” of the community with these ordinances, it doesn’t seem to be accomplishing this.
“With something like this, you’d have to determine whether they [a city] had discriminatory intent in passing these zoning laws. For example, in Upper Saddle River, we showed discriminatory intent by determining that when the eruv was being built and was opposed, the next week an ordinance was introduced banning all political signage or otherwise from being posted on telephone poles [including small lechis which mark eruvin], though there already was a law on the books that sufficiently regulated political signs,” said Yehudah Buchweitz, a partner at Weil, Gotshal and Manges, LLP, who has been involved with every such lawsuit over the past twenty years. “‘Preserving local flavor’ is a code word for discrimination,” he added.
Buchweitz recommended that interested parties file OPRA (Open Public Records Access) requests, and refer to the minutes of meetings before and after Linden passed these zoning ordinances to try to determine the intent of the ordinances.
There’s virtually no question that the zoning ordinance proposals being made in Linden are out of compliance with RLUIPA (and possibly other laws) and it’s just a matter of time before Linden is sued by New Jersey’s Department of Civil Rights as well as federal authorities if they don’t stop making life difficult for their neighbors.
For me, while it’s my role to defend The Jewish Link’s editorial choices, I want to ensure that I do not wish to in any way condemn Mishpacha for their excellent article. I think the articles were written for different audiences, and there is room for all of us.
In this day and age, with a paper like ours that reaches many types of communities throughout New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, we believe it is important that Jews of all stripes support their coreligionists, chasidic or otherwise, who are being zoned out of their own towns. For me, it makes no difference whether Jews wear “big hats and curls” or baseball hats and khakis. I, and The Jewish Link, stand with our fellow Jews.
