Comments about religion at heart of latest hearing
Zoning board case centers on use of home by worshippers
BY ELANAARON Correspondent

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP - The case concerning an individual's right to hold group prayer in his home will continue in April.

No resolution was reached at the Feb. 28 meeting of the Zoning Board of Adjustment during which the board considered to hear testimony in the case of Rabbi Avraham Bernstein, who resides in a home on Stillwells Corner Road.

Resident Paul Sweda is asking the zoning board to find Bernstein in violation of the municipal zoning ordinance and to determine if Bernstein's home is a house of worship. The Feb. 28 meeting was held at the Freehold Township Senior Center on Jackson Mills Road.

Sweda was called to testify as the case continued. He was asked to read from a transcript of a broadcast on Channel 9 in which he referred to organized prayer as pornography.

"I think it's (organized prayer) something like pornography. You know it when you see it," Sweda said in the broadcast.

Sweda testified that prayer services occur every Friday night and Saturday morning in Bernstein's home. He also stated that large gatherings of people occur nine or 10 times a year at Bernstein's home.

Attorney Gerald A. Marks, who represents Bernstein, tried to present information about the actual number of worshippers involved.

Because Sweda had not testified to the actual number of people who gather regularly in Bernstein's home, the board would not hear any testimony from Marks concerning the counts obtained from a surveillance camera which had been placed in the municipal building by the township and trained on Bernstein's home across the street.

Marks requested a subpoena of Township Committeewoman Dorothy Avallone, who was the mayor in 2007, and any other municipal officials involved to appear before the board to testify. The board denied Marks' request.

"You are foreclosing my ability to bring in proof,"Marks said to the board. "I find it incredible that the zoning board doesn't want to hear testimony from another branch of the township."

At one point during a heated debate on that issue board members accused Marks of "trying to bait the board."

Board members later said they would simply ask Avallone for the information, with onemember stating that the numbers (of worshippers) are irrelevant. At the same time, board members asked that Bernstein appear at the next meeting, as well as several members of his religious group, to testify.

Marks also asked Sweda to read from a letter he wrote to the township administrator in 1999.

In the letter Sweda described visitors to Bernstein's home as people wearing "very weird clothing." Sweda paraphrased his statement before the board, stating that his definition of weird meant "something that's not normal from my perspective."

Sweda also stated in his letter to the township that Bernstein was a "missionary who wanted to convert [the] neighborhood." He mentioned communities such as Lakewood, areas of Brooklyn, N.Y., andMonsey, N.Y., which have large orthodox Jewish populations, and wrote that he feared the "domino effect" would occur in Freehold Township.

In the same letter Sweda referred to Chabad Lubavitch, the group with which Bernstein is affiliated, as a "fanatic religious cult."

"This was probably an overzealous statement," Sweda said to the board. "This (letter) was nine years ago and I think I've seen they're not fanatic."

Marks asked Sweda if Chabad Lubavitch had taken over the neighborhood. Sweda replied that they "had not, yet," which drew much applause from the large audience.

Members of the board made it clear throughout the proceedings that the case is a land use issue and nothingmore. The application will continue at the zoning board's April 10 meeting at town hall.