Could Chabad Find A Home At Synagogue In Toms River?

TOMS RIVER, NJ -- Officials at Congregation B'nai Israel have approved initiating discussions with the Chabad Jewish Center about relocating the center to the congregation's property on Old Freehold Road.

"B'nai Israel is hoping to stem the tide of anti-Semitism, while offering an answer to some of the zoning issues created by the current Chabad," congregation officials said in a post on Facebook Friday morning.

The Chabad Jewish Center has been the center of controversy going back to last fall, when Rabbi Moshe Gourarie applied to the Toms River Board of Adjustment for a zoning variance to permit Gourarie to continue holding religious activities at the Chabad on Church Road, which also serves as his home.

Though Church Road has several houses of worship along the stretch between Old Freehold Road and Hooper Avenue, churches are no longer a permitted use due to a 2009 change in the zoning of the area.

The property where the Chabad currently sits was purchased by the Chabad board in 2011, according to testimony at the December zoning board hearing where Gourarie sought a ruling from the board that a variance wasn't needed on the basis that the religious activities were an ancillary use.

The board rejected Gourarie's request at that meeting. He was set to go before the board earlier this month for a use variance, but days before that meeting, he filed suit in federal court claiming the zoning board was influenced by "a rising tide of anti-Semitism."

The Chabad application came up amid increasing tensions in the northwest portion of Toms River, where residents had told the Township Council and Mayor Thomas Kelaher, as well as other township officials, that they felt under siege from continuous real estate canvassing that was occurring.

After months of research and hearings, the township banned real estate canvassing for five years in two areas in the North Dover section.

Tensions have not completely abated even in the wake of the real estate soliciting ban. Two instances of anti-Semitic graffiti have occurred at Riverwood Park; police were investigating them as bias crimes. And a Bloomberg article quoting Kelaher about the real estate soliciting ban cited him as referring to ultra-Orthodox Jews moving into Toms River as an “invasion;” Kelaher said he was quoting testimony from the real estate hearings, but the quote drew an angry public response from Lakewood Mayor Menashe Miller demanding an apology.

Gourarie's lawsuit, filed by Roman Storzer of Storzer & Greene of New York, in conjunction with Christopher Costa of Kenny Chase & Costa, who has been representing Gourarie before the zoning board, refers in part to a number of statements made on social media by residents commenting on various aspects of the issue.

Gourarie had been forced to seek a variance after receiving summonses for hosting gatherings at the Chabad. Residents say the fact that Gourarie did not follow the zoning rules and the fact that the Chabad has tax-exempt status from the state are why they are angry.

"This is a legal issue, not a religious issue," Jeremy Grunin, who is co-president of the board of Congregation B'nai Israel, said during Kelaher's press conference after the Bloomberg article appeared. "This is not about religion."

Rabbi Ellen Wolintz-Fields, head of Congregation B'nai Israel, which was founded in Toms River in 1950, said the key to reducing the tensions on all sides is education and communication, to create a better understanding all the way around, so that people begin to look past labels and see each other as human beings.

Having the Chabad move to the synagogue's property -- on Old Freehold Road just south of the Garden State Parkway and near Whitty Road -- could resolve some of the concerns that Church Road residents had about added traffic in the area, however, and could ease tensions as well.

It could be some time yet, however, before there is a definitive plan.

"The board is open to discussion but we are only in the exploratory stages looking into the possibility of a match," Grunin said by email Thursday evening. "There's a long way to go."

(Congregation B'nai Israel, photo via Congregation B'nai Israel Facebook page)