As noted in New Jersey AG Gurbir Grewal’s recently filed lawsuit against Jackson Township over religious discrimination, one of the ways officials in Jackson engaged in religious discrimination was by making it impossible to erect an eruv. 

As the lawsuit states, “Jackson discriminated against Orthodox Jews by enacting a 2017 zoning ordinance that targeted and effectively banned the creation of eruvim – symbolic, boundary-defined areas in which observant Orthodox Jews are permitted to engage in certain activities otherwise prohibited on the Sabbath (Friday evening to Saturday evening) and during the holiday of Yom Kippur. The boundaries of an eruv are often marked by affixing plastic strips known as “lechis” to utility poles.”

The way they did this was by saying that you can’t put anything in the right of way – the area between the sidewalk and the street, thereby effectively making it impossible to put up an eruv.

That being said, Clara Glory, the chairwoman of the Jackson Republican Club, has maintained that she is completely open to Orthodox Jews moving into Jackson, but that they have to follow the rules of the Township, and one of those rules is not putting anything in the right of way.

But there’s a problem: Clara Glory has been sharing a Facebook post from her daughter, Jen Glory, where she has a sign up for an auto detailing business owned by Jen’s husband – Clara Glory’s son-in-law – that was planted quite clearly in the right of way.

Now, if Clara Glory is so adamant that Jews not use the right of way to erect an eruv – literally nothing more than a piece of string – why is she okay with a lawn sign in the right of way trumpeting her son-in-law’s business, so much so that she is sharing it publicly on Facebook?

If using the right of way is good for Clara Glory, it should be good for the Jews as well.