“The residents are very welcoming to the Jewish community,” he said. “Everyone will tell you that they have great relationships with their neighbors”
ecent election campaigns across the Tristate area have typically featured one candidate heralding the beginning of the end for the local Jewish community, sending them into the arms of his opponent. Against that backdrop, a ray of good news is shining in from a New Jersey township adjacent to Lakewood.
Toms River’s election last week Tuesday presented a rarity: a very good slate of choices for its burgeoning Orthodox community, headed by two friendly candidates. Even more importantly, neither the victor, Republican Maurice Hill, nor his opponent, Democrat Jonathan Petro, were agitating against the eiruv, the yeshivos, or the Jewish community. Compared to some other area races, it was a boring election.
This bit of good news was unforeseeable just two years ago. Then, anger at the influx of frum Jews into Toms River and neighboring Jackson culminated in “no-knocking” ordinances prohibiting real estate agents from knocking on people’s doors to ask if their house was for sale.
“[Jews in Toms River] have a very good relationship with the government,” confirmed Rabbi Avi Schnall, director of Agudath Israel of America’s New Jersey office. “The government of Toms River publicly promoted and supported an eiruv, and there were articles in the press written by the township manager in support of the eiruv. There is a good relationship with the government in Toms River, in contrast to Jackson.”
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