Reply To: Lakewood school board State monitor (and Five Towns)

DaMoshe: Considering the fact that they do have large families, and the (many) children get married and need homes for their own new (large) families, housing needs to be built. Somewhere. That much is obvious. So if wherever the Jews go the locals wont want them because their families are too big, they grow too fast, and they use too much resources, should the Jews move into the sea?

What you describe is the natural phenomenon of growth that will happen anywhere we live. And Jews need to live near fellow observant Jews for (walking distance) shuls, yeshivos, etc.

As far as public school funding, that is a red herring. The Jews pay property (and other) taxes to pay for public school education. These Jews don’t send their children to public schools. So the PS are coming out way ahead with religious Jews paying for PS but not using the PSs. As far as them getting special ed and busing for their children, they’re entitled to it by law as much as anyone else. Just because they have long peyos or speak yiddish doesn’t disentitle Jewish special ed needing children from obtaining those services. And, remember, the community overall is putting far more money into the public school, without using the schools (other than special ed), than the average non-Jewish families that are sending children to PS and thus getting about a $20,000 per year, per child free PS education. So calling a spade a spade indicates that Jews underutilize and receive less public school benefits, while their net pay into the local public school system is way above average.

If they don’t want Jews because the Jews do things that are uniquely Jewish, that I would call anti-semitism. But even if you are too shy to call it that, call it what you want, but Jewish growth isn’t going to stop because some locals don’t like it.