Article in the Forward.
Forward.com- The Lakewood Yeshiva is in New Jersey, but it’s the Texas of Talmud academies. Everything is big, from festivals to real estate deals. Its airy study halls can hold hundreds of bearded men in black pants and crisp white shirts, their fringes swinging at the waist as they spend their days in prayer and study. When the yeshiva opened some 70 years ago, Lakewood’s big business was chicken farming. Today, Torah is the economic engine, and Lakewood is a boomtown fueled by the yeshiva’s scholars and their families. The school makes the entire place feel blessed — to many.
But not all. Citizens and activists both within and outside the town lament its transformation from exurban heaven to holy city. And those critics have found each other on a Facebook group called “Rise Up Ocean County,” which says the yeshiva is fueling ugly, unhealthy, inequitable economic development. The group’s mission: to slow that growth down. Their tactic: Shaming Lakewood on Facebook. read more at the Forward.com
I assume that when the Nazis came and rounded everyone up, the frummer and the frier were together in the same gas chambers.
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