A welcome sign at the entrance to the township of Jackson, New Jersey. Photo: Wikipedia.

Jackson Township in Ocean County, New Jersey, is preparing to settle with the state Attorney General’s Office a lawsuit alleging that it used zoning codes to drive Orthodox Jews from the area and deter others from moving in, according to local media.

Brent Pohlman, an attorney who is representing Jackson in the case, received approval from the Township Council to settle the suit, the Asbury Park Press reported Wednesday. The terms of the potential settlement have not been publicly disclosed.

As The Algemeiner previously reported, the council in 2017 passed two zoning codes to restrict private schools to three specific areas and outlaw constructing new dormitories entirely, a measure “making it impossible for religious boarding schools to establish in the township” and ensuring that no new yeshivas could be established, the US Justice Department, which last year settled a similar suit with Jackson Township, said in 2020.

Then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal also sued Jackson Township, accusing it of surveilling Jews and singling them out for enforcement of land use laws to prevent them from building sukkahs, temporary structures built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and eruvim, boundaries within which certain activities are permitted during Shabbat.

According to the Asbury Park Press, Jackson Township also allegedly surveilled Jewish homes on Shabbat to investigate claims that private homes were being used as synagogues.

Local resident Hope Drew was active in the movement against the Orthodox community. During a township council meeting in Oct. 2021, she became irate and sobbed while accusing Jews of “lawlessness,” and she described their homes as WaWas, a chain of rural convenience stores that sell cigarettes and pre-prepared hoagies.

Drew also campaigned to eliminate transportation subsidies for students attending non-public schools — many of which are religious and serve Orthodox Jewish children, 3,100 of whom attend religious schools in Lakewood, a neighboring town home to over 100,000 Orthodox Jews.

Other residents took to social media to clamor for restricting Orthodox migration to the area, with one saying that Jews are “filthy f**king cockroaches.”

Under the terms of its agreement with the Justice Department, Jackson Township paid a $45,000 penalty and agreed to having its land use policies monitored by the Justice Department for a three-year period during which it must report to government officials any “amendments or modifications to the township’s zoning code, rules, laws, or ordinances that affect land uses for schools, residential schools, houses of worship, or other religious uses.”

The town must also verify its compliance with the agreement and train all civil servants to apply the Fair Housing Act and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) lawfully. In addition, Jackson was ordered to pay $150,000 “for the purpose of compensating aggrieved persons who have suffered as a result of alleged discriminatory actions by the township” and created a formal process for religious minorities to file complaints alleging religious discrimination.

Neither Pohlman nor the Attorney General’s Office responded to The Algemeiner’s requests for comment for this story.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.