Mike DavisAsbury Park Press
JACKSON — Dozens of residents packed the municipal building to chide township officials on ordinances that would regulate schools, dormitories and houses of worship across the township.
Instead, they received a stern talking-to by the township's religious land use attorney blaming them, in part, for the lawsuits that led to the lawsuits — and, in turn, the new ordinances — in the first place.
"The timing of the ordinances and the public commentary at the time created a very difficult backdrop against which the township had to defend these allegations," said Brent Pohlman, who has represented Jackson in litigation with the Justice Department, New Jersey Attorney General's Office and Agudath Israel. "The complaints contained quotes and emails that were received by the township which were very discriminatory, derogatory towards members of the Orthodox Jewish and religious communities. Those quotes served as the basis for the Justice Department and New Jersey Attorney General's Office claims."
The township council on Tuesday delayed its vote on the new ordinances, a key part to settling lawsuits by the Department of Justice, New Jersey Attorney General's Office and Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish advocacy group, after the meeting chambers were packed beyond its legal capacity.
The ordinances will instead be discussed at the Dec. 12 council meeting, which will be relocated to a larger facility, township attorney Greg McGuckin said.
If passed, they would designate specific zones where schools, dormitories, houses of worship, eruv wires and mikvahs could be located. Such projects would still require planning or zoning board approval.
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Each of the lawsuits filed against Jackson used a different, colorful phrase to describe the character of the town. The Justice Department noted a "backdrop of widespread animus toward the Orthodox community moving into Jackson." The New Jersey Attorney General's Office referred to an "increasing fear and disgust at the prospect of Orthodox Jews moving to the town." And Agudath Israel cited an "anti-religious and, more specifically, anti-Orthodox Jewish animus."
But each case cited a number of antisemitic comments on both social media, including comments on Asbury Park Press articles, quotes from residents at public meetings and emails sent to township officials.
"Between the shuls, eruv wires and now this, this wonderful neighborhood is going downhill fast," one resident wrote in an email to code compliance officers in June 2017, referring to a nearby home that held Sabbath prayer services. The email was included as part of Agudath Israel's 2019 amended complaint.
The reaction to the new ordinances has been similar to the uproar preceding the 2017 dormitory and school ordinances, when tensions were at a fever pitch. A new "Jackson Strong" group has decried the moves as causing the "destruction of an American town" and the "unprecedented historical demise of an American neighborhood."
The language is a similar, if not more overt, resurgence of the tone and language used in the mid-2010s by grassroots organizers in Jackson and other municipalities, who encouraged residents not to sell their home amid a buying boom by Orthodox families, urging them instead to stay "Jackson Strong."
While Pohlman didn't name any groups specifically, he criticized "groups that have spread fear and uncertainty" for being "partially responsible for the lawsuits being filed in the first place.
"The township was put in a position where it had to defend against comments, submissions and actions taken by individuals who attempted to influence township action but were not part of the government," Pohlman said. "And that is a very difficult position to defend.
"And one of the consequences of these derogatory public comments … was that the township was sued."
If approved next week, the ordinances would cap nearly a decade of litigation that reached a fever pitch when the Jackson council approved ordinances banning new schools and dormitories in March 2017.
In those ordinances, plaintiffs argued that the discrimination was clear: The only schools developers were looking to build were for Orthodox Jewish children. Some Orthodox high schools require boys to board as a way of shielding them from secular distractions. And another ordinance to ban the construction of eruvim came after a group of residents came to the township with a proposal for building one.
An eruv is a ceremonial hung wire often hung from utility poles that allows practicing Jews to carry objects, including pushing strollers and carrying keys and inhalers, on the Sabbath.
"These ordinances cannot be understood to accomplish anything other than to target the Orthodox Jewish community and were adopted for that very purpose," attorneys Donna Jennings and Sieglinde Rath wrote in a 2019 legal filing.
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The townshipsettled with the Justice Department last year, agreeing to federal monitoring and a $150,000 restitution fund. And in August, the township agreed to pay $575,000 in penalties and restitution, as well as draft a new eruvim ordinance and new permitting requirements for sukkahs as part of asettlement in the Attorney General's lawsuit.
Last month, the council agreed to a settlement with Agudath Israel, but the financial restitution hasn't been released.
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The new ordinances were a key part of each settlement, and come amid a wave of new school development.
In May 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp issued an injunction that essentiallynullified the ban on school construction, allowing for those applications to proceed under pre-2017 zoning laws.
Since then, the township's planning board has approved six applications for 12 schools that would serve more than 7,000 Orthodox students.
Mike Davis has spent the last decade covering New Jersey local news, marijuana legalization, transportation and a little bit of everything else. He's won a few awards that make his parents very proud. Contact him at mdavis@gannettnj.com or @byMikeDavis on Twitter.
