Rabbi sues Freehold for violating his religious freedoms

by: Jason Springer

Tue Aug 28, 2007 at 08:55:43 PM EDT

A New Jersey rabbi has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the township where he lives, saying local officials in Freehold Township are conducting an illegal surveillance of his house and restricting his right to pray at his home.

At issue is whether Bernstein, a rabbi with the ultraorthodox Lubavitch Chabad, is allowed to host a minyon, the necessary 10 men to pray under orthodox Jewish law, at his home on Shabbat, Friday night to Saturday night.  The Monmouth County township says he is violating local zoning ordinances because he is using his home as a house of worship, according to the lawsuit.

Bernstein received a zoning violation in February 2007 and a summons in April; in May he filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court. The township retaliated by "secretly setting up a video camera," aimed at the Bersteins' home, which is operated on Friday afternoon before Shabbat until its conclusion on Saturday, the lawsuit alleges.

*Update-  In the thread, Rob Usdin posted an additional story providing more information.  While the frame that I gave is incorrect, I think the issue is one that deserves discussion.  I shouldn't have closed w/ the homeland security end.  I was looking at the resources that were being spent.  I hope people will look past my reactionary initial post and look deeper to the issue.  I feel like it's gonna come up again regardless of the religion.

ICE raid in Englewood??!!

by: lsanchez490

Tue Mar 27, 2007 at 12:23:28 AM EDT

END THE ATTACK ON IMMIGRANTS!
DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF ALL WHO LIVE AND WORK IN NEW JERSEY!

STATE-WIDE SPEAK-OUT AND PROTEST MEETING

Saturday March 31 1:00 PM
Paul Robeson CenterBusch Campus
600 Bartholomew Rd
Piscataway, NJ

Immigrants in New Jersey, as in the rest of the United States, are facing increasing attacks. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids are being stepped up, tearing families apart, detaining and deporting those who have lived here for years. Demagogic town governments are taking anti-immigrant measures. Morristown, for example, is planning to deputize its police as ICE agents.  Massive workplace raids like the recent one in New Bedford, Mass. can happen at any time. A New Jersey radio station, 101.5, has called for people to turn in their neighbors as suspected undocumented immigrants, encouraging vigilantism.

The attacks on migrants are attacks on all of us. They are aimed at maintaining an underclass of workers who are too terrified to assert their rights to decent pay, working conditions and living conditions.  No one, not even the government, wants to deport 12 million undocumented immigrants who are vital to the economy. The attacks and anti-immigrant laws aim to drive down the cost of all labor, benefiting employers, pitting worker against worker, and hurting us all.

We are fighting back, immigrants and native-born united!  We are speaking out against the attacks and the demagogic proposal in towns like Morristown's and Freehold.  We are starting to organize a Rapid Response Network which will give aid to those confronting ICE raids or employer abuses of immigrants. We are joining with organizations across the country to organize a Second Great  Boycott.

Speak out for the rights of ALL!

We invite your organization's endorsement and participation in this event and in an April 3 noon press conference in New Brunswick

Endorsing organizations(list in formation):
NJ May 1 Coalition
IRATE/First Friends
NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee
Philippine Forum
United Day Laborers of Freehold

Interested in reading about progressive Morristown:
Town seeks new power over illegal immigrants
Morristown wants to give its police the same authority as federal officers

Much respect to Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo.
Hispanics steamed by shock radio stunt

And from a New York Times Article, good old Freehold.

PUBLIC LIVES; Back in the Fight He Picked Decades Ago
Article Tools Sponsored By
By LYNDA RICHARDSON
Published: March 17, 2004

CESAR A. PERALES, the president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, is revved up. But he is not losing his cool. (He is too cool for that.) He is talking about the fund's wranglings in federal court over the attempt by Freehold Borough in Monmouth County, N.J., to prevent day laborers from gathering at a vacant lot to scout for work.

''The question of the treatment of day laborers is so flagrant, I feel it viscerally,'' Mr. Perales says, leaning over to emphasize the point. ''This is to me as horrific as the segregation that the government imposed in the South. We're seeing local governments treating undocumented workers in a similar fashion, marginalizing them, not wanting them to live where they live. This is a fight that will take a long time.''