Last night, TLS posted about the fire at the Blue Claws which stemmed from the fireworks show.
Immediately, the haters got to work and started placing blame on Lakewood’s Orthodox community.
While some stopped short from directly mentioning Jews – in fear of being banned from our forums, some had no issue in doing so.
Check out some of the many comments below.
Note: The users have been banned from our platforms.
Theres a facebook group called (moderated) that always has tons of comments like this. They talk like this all the time!
I am so saddened people are saying such things. Just yesterday at the Howell Kohl’s the person in front of me at the Amazon drop off center was an older Orthodox Jewish man. He was very friendly with me and the cashier. I told him how I was traveling to Israel and he wished me good trip. He was nothing but neighborly and respectful. The Orthodox are just as frustrated with overdevelopment as all of us and many are friendly and respectful to us as well.
We need to be honest that although much of this comes from שנאת ישראל, a little חשבון הנפש never hurts and maybe we are overdeveloping which is part of the גורם of this שנאה. The ביטול זמן that we are causing in our own community through the time we sit in traffic is no small thing.
That is the thing Mr. Chaim. Nobody – Orthodox and non-Orthodox – wants to see the neighboring towns and regions end up Lakewood style overdevelopment!
Galus…
Why is TLS spreading these hateful messages and giving them wider exposure? A little thought before you post.
Last week, someone submitted a post to the Scoop in which he described an anti semitic incident that had occurred with him in Toms River.
Some have tried to attribute these anti semitic incidents to the increase of jews moving into neighborhoods that, at one time, had very few jews living there. Others have tried to attribute these incidents to overdevelopment.
However, there was commenter who commented about the aforementioned anti semitic incident, by saying that, as a jew growing up in Jackson over 60 years ago, he experienced anti semitic harrassment. It seemed from his words like the harassment he experienced, happened often to him. But how many jews were living in Jackson over 60 years ago? How many jewish developers were there in Jackson at the time?
I’m sorry, but anti-semitic harassment exists, regardless of the quantity of jews living in proximity of the harassers or the quantity of jewish homes and businesses in a given neighborhood.
Look up the history of who settled in Jackson 100 years ago, specifically the “Rova Farms” area.
From what I can tell, the people who settled in Jackson 100 years ago were primarily thousands upon thousands of Russian Orthodox Christians. If there were jews living there – perhaps some farmers – it was but a minute percent of the population.
I would love to ask the commenter that I referred to earlier – the one who grew up in Jackson over 60 years ago – about the demographics. Perhaps he will read this comment and respond.
Nevertheless, it seems to me like the overwhelming majority of those who settled there were Russian Orthodox Christians.
If, however, you DO discover that a small number of jews were living there at the time, please don’t turn that into a huge amount of the population.
I might also add to my previous comment that, from what I can tell, Rova Farms was also populated with thousands of Russian Orthodox Christians.
I have to agree with Chaim. The city that Lakewood became is enough to bother the old time Lakewood residents. I recently moved out to a quiet neighborhood in a surrounding town and just this Shabbos a non Jew drove by and called out “go back to Lakewood”. They don’t understand that we moved into their quiet neighborhood because we don’t want to live in Lakewood chaos. But their concerned we are going to replicate it in their neighborhood. Its a huge Chillul Hashem what became of Lakewood and really embarrassing to be part of.
Looks like there protected under the 1st amendment so nothing to see guys move along.