9:25PM EST: Lakewood, NJ -In a hotly contested race, followed closely by just about every resident of Lakewood, powerhouse incumbent and NJ State Sen. Robert (Bob) Singer, has defeated Hershel (Harold) Herskowitz in the Republican primary for Lakewood Township Committeeman.
The race prompted vicious debates in shuls, street corners, and even caused numerous blogs to pop up on the Internet – some in support of Harold Hershkowitz, and some slamming his positions.
Today’s election had the opposite results for the “Vaad Of Lakewood” as they did in the recent election for NJ Governor, which was that the Lakewood Vaad went for Corzine (and in this case Bob Singer), and Lakewood people went for Christie (and in this case Harold Hershkowitz).
Practically nobody in Lakewood had ever heard of Hershkowitz before this election, and he utilized a popular Lakewood News-Blog to get his word out, and gather support. His election caused one of the biggest “tumults” Lakewood has ever before seen.
His website says he’s 44-years-old, is a resident of Lakewood for the past 23 years, and is married with 6 children.
He is also the owner of “Toys for Thoughts” in downtown Lakewood for over 8 Years.
On a sad note, Harold Hershkowitz is sitting Shiva for his mother who was Niftar on Sunday.
(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN)
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12 Responses
‘Today’s election had the opposite results for the “Vaad Of Lakewood” as they did in the recent election for NJ Governor’
Huh? Back in the days when people went with the Vaad, their endorsed candidate won by a landslide. Singer only won by a few percentage points. To me, this further shows the lack of power the Vaad has. It is still very possible for HH to win running as an independant in Nov.
This shows that the VAAD has lost their power, and lakewood doesn’t follow them blindly anymore!!!
The complete numbers are still not in. We are only seeing 94.74 of results and it is bad the Vaad lost terribly. Yeshiava has 6000 talmidim Singer the Vaad canidate has 3166 votes to Hershels 2637. The seniors in lakewood vote as well and they are all pro singer he just lowered there taxes. So this is really a bad loss for the vaad. Yeshiva supposedly by the politicians had a voting block Of 10000
Figure that ALL the seniors made good on their promise to vote for Singer. Nisht Unzura did so as well. That probably adds up to at least 2000 votes – out of the three thousand, that did vote for Singer.
Plus the fact that Hershel, sitting shiva, has not been on the campaign trail.
That does not add up well for the Vaad at all. Effectively, they can no longer claim to deliver many thousands of votes for a prospective candidate.
In that respect, Hershel has won – big time.
Looks like Hikind in Brooklyn and the Vaad in Lakewood are not the tickets to victory they once were.
if u dissect the numbers, it looks like VERY FEW frum people voted for Singer! The Vaad has suffered a major embarrassment, and it appears that their days are numbered.
I was so annoyed yesterday by the constant loudspeakers blasting thru town, not allowing our kids to sleep and disturbing our concentration. I hope this is not a sign of things to come in future elections. This is a quiet suburban town, please stop with those broadcasts!
May Hashem comfort the Hershkowitz family of mourners among all the mourners of Israel.
Hershkowitz already accomplished a lot just by running. He scared the pants off the Machers, and indeed they responded by not increasing the school budget. That’s to the credit of Hershkowitz (and the new board members).
That being said, I assume that Hershkowitz (since he is Lo Alainu sitting shivah and is not being occupied by the election right now) had nothing to do with the loudspeakers roaming the streets of Lakewood. What an embarrasment – besides for being extremely annoying!! This is not Boro Park yet. Please don’t turn off the nisht unzere even more than they are.
with all due respect to the lakewood comunity, its a true embarsement to everyone that singer won. Doesnt anyone check out the facts befor they vote? singers win just further prooves further that the members of our town fail to be indviduel thinkers…because by voting for singer they are hiking up taxes for themselves. hope you all think it through a little more next time with out being so naive and just following others opinios blindly.
Boruch Hashem Hershkowitz lost. It is not a good thing for frum jews to be in positions of power. The goyim hate us more. We need to remember we are in Golus and we should not have positions of power or government. Unless we have Daas Torah come out and tell us otherwise. Money (high property tax)is not everything.
re: tachlis
do you really think he would run for public office without daas torah? and im sure that there were quite a few people who DID ask daas torah before voting. bmg is not the only daas torah.
“bmg is not the only daas torah”. What a silly statement. Isn’t it about time that people understood that “daas torah” (as it is used) is just another way of saying “opinion”. The current fad of blaming our life decisions on someone else, and then righteously invoking “daas torah” is ridiculous. R’ Hirsch has an amazing piece at the beginning of Horeb concerning man’s duty to make his own decisions. The Torah- through a Talmud Chacham- tells us the Truth; it is up to us to decide what our particular responsibility is in a situation.