Do Jews Even Live in Glen Ridge, New Jersey?

Photo by Patricia Ratish. Cantor Jessica Fox Epstein leading the Second Annual Glen Ridge Menorah Lighting at Borough Hall. November 26, 2021 Glen Ridge, NJ

“Do Jews even live in Glen Ridge?”

My congregants have asked me this ever since I began working as a cantor in Livingston, New Jersey. That’s seventeen years and counting. In the 1960s and early 1970s the entire Jewish community of Newark–roughly 65,000 strong–picked up their stores, their delis, their rabbis and synagogues and went due west to Livingston and nearby towns in Essex County.

Glen Ridge sits north of Newark. They didn’t go north.

Founded as a 1.5 square mile breakaway borough from the larger town of Bloomfield in 1895, the historic–and almost completely residential — town of Glen Ridge is a unique place. The majority of homes were built in the Nineteenth or very early Twentieth centuries. It currently has the most operating gas streetlamps of any city in America. The sidewalks are blue slate, not concrete. The trees arch over Ridgewood Avenue, forming a quiet, lush, and pristine canopy. Norman Rockwell’s America. When electrification began–bearing in mind that many of Edison’s workers lived on the south end of town–the town elders passed laws forcing power lines to run through backyards only, leaving the streetscape as pristine today as in 1895. A horse and buggy would not look out of place on these streets. Just last year, it was ranked by USA Today as the wealthiest town in New Jersey.

According to the 2019 census, Glen Ridge is 81.3% white, 6.8% Asian and 4% African-American.

Maybe I should have known something was up at a Book Club meeting at the Glen Ridge Women’s Club when I was asked by some women to “explain what the Jews think” about something when discussing the book, “The Help.” Except for being called a “Christ Killer” growing up in Kankakee, I had never felt so singled out for my religion. Needless to say, I didn’t come back for the other books and I’ve since let my club membership lapse.

There are two primary reasons why Jews didn’t move to Glen Ridge. Yes, they really wanted to go where all the other Jews of Newark were going — we are a tribe, after all. The other reason? They were kept out, by and large.

When I was a cantor in Bloomfield, an older couple told me that back in the days when a single realtor controlled the inventory, they were stopped from seeing homes because of their Jewish surname. The Glen Ridge Country Club was known to be one which did not have many Jewish members. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, there were huge battles in town to try and get the public schools to stop singing Christian songs like “Silent Night” at school concerts. “There are more of us than of you!” was shouted at Jewish families on the soccer field. It was ugly, Norman Rockwell on the surface but something less wholesome hidden beneath.

There is no synagogue in town. No bagel shops. You get the picture. In short, it is a town where my three daughters were often the only identifiably Jewish children in their classes for many years. They would become acutely aware of this around the winter holidays as ours was one of the only houses on Ridgewood Avenue without decorative lights, Santa Claus, etc. The Hanukkah songs they were raised with were never played at the school holiday parties that take place in the lower grades. My children always wondered why.

Every year, there was a town-wide luminary display on Christmas Eve. Everyone was expected to participate, lights all along the streets. Finally, last year someone Jewish questioned this tradition asking why it couldn’t be on New Year’s Eve as a secular event so all could participate. They were told, “If you want that, why don’t you go live in Livingston?” Despite that ugly sentiment, it has since moved to New Year’s Eve.

Swastikas were painted on a playground just this past fall. The police called the incident “culturally insensitive.” After that statement, there were meetings with the chief of police, town residents, and a local rabbi to make sure the serious nature of the crime was understood. It’s just not easy being Jewish here — or in many places in America. It is so much easier to live where the tribe lives. Even after centuries of living in this country, sometimes it feels as if we are still strangers in a strange land. Think of how many Christian symbols and practices take place in your own town without a hesitation, without a second thought.

For decades, the town has had a well-attended Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at Borough Hall, but unlike other towns like West Orange, Livingston, or even Montclair, there was no public menorah on town grounds and, of course, no public lighting ceremony. Last July, an eighth grader named Lily Ratish petitioned the town council to put a menorah in front of Borough Hall for a public lighting at last. Glen Ridge resident James Cordon felt so strongly about this that he volunteered to underwrite the expense of the six-foot electric menorah himself. The council voted unanimously to approve the menorah though they didn’t pay for it. The Jewish community in town was overjoyed. Last year, over one hundred people attended the first ever public lighting with a local rabbi leading the prayers.

All this because of one young woman raising her voice, one person asking for representation, a movement began here that created light, hope, and a feeling of inclusion for all.

This year, I was asked to lead the blessings and songs for the town’s menorah lighting on the first night. We offered donuts, dreidels, and gelt — these chocolate coins are a traditional favor. We ended up with well over 200 people — Jews and non-Jews, politicians and toddlers, all gathered together in front of Borough Hall to share blessings, songs, and hope. Rabbi Marc Katz has been invited by the town to light the last light of the menorah on the same night as the annual tree lighting.

The rabbis often have a question about Hanukkah. Why celebrate a miracle on the first night? Obviously there was enough oil in the sacred cruse to last the first night. Why was that a miracle? And the rabbis teach, the miracle of the first night was simply finding the undefiled oil in the first place, looking through the wreckage and seeing the hidden, the overlooked, seeing the holy.

Representation matters. Inclusion matters. The Jewish Community here now has an active Facebook page and has even held other events like a short Rosh Hashanah service in the Glen. Plans are afoot for a community sukkah — a temporary ritual hut — in a local garden next year.

One voice, one question, one brave young woman can shift the direction of an entire community. It is never too late to change even the most set-in-its-ways small town.

May we all find the holy during this season of light, in ourselves and our neighbors alike.

So, in answer to my congregants’ perennial question, the answer here and now in 2021 is a proud and resounding yes!