LAKEWOOD, NJ – The Lakewood News Network, a controversial online blog with strong political influences that had engaged in pointed political attacks and a recently published article criticizing the celebration of Christmas, is going through a shakeup.
The website, owned by the Voice of Lakewood, which also publishes two community magazines, the Pulse of Jackson and the Lakewood Voice, has reportedly let go of most of its writing staff at the online site.
The site, which was once heavily influenced by political insiders seeking to sow political and religious turmoil in Jackson Township and Toms River Township, has been inactive since March 27th.
LNN continues to operate a What’s App group.
In February, Shore News Network investigated articles published by the Pulse and found that there were ties that connected the publication to a now-defunct group that had promoted anti-semitism in Jackson and Toms River. SNN also detailed a report of an ant-Christmas article posted by the Jackson Pulse, a subsidiary of the parent company that owns LNN.
LNN has not made any public comments regarding its alleged reorganization.
In its entirety:
JACKSON, NJ – There’s a new magazine in Jackson Township and it’s called the Jackson Pulse and the publishers have declared war on Christmas. The predominantly Orthodox Jewish magazine took aim at Christian religious decorations as told from the viewpoint of a family who had just moved to the town.
The magazine described longtime Jackson residents’ Christmas decorations as “Grotesque”, “Wrong”, and that they were “Disgusted” by Christmas in a neighborhood that has not yet “turned”.
The article raised more than a few eyebrows in Jackson for many non-Jewish residents who saw the piece as an attack on Christmas and Christianity celebrating the birth of Jesus.
The Jackson Pulse is published by the Voice of Lakewood and run by former Jackson Planning Board Chairman Tzvi Herman, who was the funding source behind the now-defunct anti-Semitic website and Facebook page, Rise Up Ocean County.
In an article entitled “Where I Live: Our Lights” by Jackson Pulse writer Bayla Brooks, she condemns the notion of Christmas lights in a community she was buying into as a ‘frum’ neighborhood.
“Living near other frum families was very important to us, but the neighborhood we chose was only just becoming frum at the time,” Brooks wrote. “We were of the first 10% to buy and settle in the area. At the time, it bothered me a lot. I knew the turnover would continue and we’d eventually be part of a frum community. But six years ago, it was all different.”
Brooks was shocked and appalled after she and her family took a drive around the neighborhood on the first night of Hannukah to see disgusting Christmas decorations throughout the neighborhood.
“Let’s find those menorahs,” she wrote.
She didn’t find many menorahs. Something in her new neighborhood was “thoroughly wrong”.
“The streets were flooded with colors of all kinds, grotesque forms littering the lawns, twinkling lights, and red and white cone-shaped hats flopping in the wind,” she wrote. The horror to think that she would even see manger scenes with baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Three Wise Men.
“Call off the contract!” she said. “I wanted to scream. Is this the place where I should be sinking all my savings?”
“Dazed”, she safely made it home, scarred by the Christianity and celebration of Jesus and Christmas in her neighborhood that was supposed to be only for people who share her beliefs.
How dare this town I am moving to not cease all of their traditions for me, she must have thought.
“The gaudy decorations stood there, defiant,” she said as if it was some sort of plot against her large financial real-estate investment. “Where was the up-and-coming frum Jackson neighborhood we had heard about?”
That was six years ago, according to her story, but now she is happy with her decision. The neighborhood, she says, has ‘turned’. Eruvs sprung up and frum families soon arrived in droves. Today, she is thankful her neighborhood windows are lined with menorahs and the disgusting and gaudy Christmas decorations are gone.
We reached out the the Lakewood News Network to see why they would publish such an insensitive and antagonistic article in their magazine. They didn’t care enough to respond.
No apologies. No comment.
Imagine if a non-frum newspaper published a similar story, the outcry we would receive. The names we would be called.
The Jackson Pulse owes the residents of Jackson a heartfelt apology for their blatant attack on Christmas.
You can read the article in its entirety on page 56 here. Then go ahead and tell LNN how you feel about this.
