Lakewood, NJ - Edict Turns Many Jews Into Library Regulars

Lakewood, NJ - Bruce Rosenberg used to pay his bills online from home. That changed in September, when the rabbis of Lakewood's large Orthodox community told parents of yeshiva students they no longer could have the Internet in their homes. Rosenberg, who has two children in religious school, disconnected. Now he treks twice a week to the public library in this Ocean County township, using its free Internet access to pay bills and sometimes check the news. "Whoever doesn't have a computer now has to come to the library. Today you need it (the Internet) for everything," said Rosenberg, 26. He added he supports the ban, which was designed to protect students from online smut.

He's not alone. While many, if not most, Orthodox Jews in Lakewood eschewed the Internet long before the edict, some with children in Lakewood's 43 yeshivas cut the cord or put a lock on the computer afterward.

Others have quietly defied the ban, community leaders say no one has been subject to the ban's ultimate penalty: expulsion from school for students whose parents have kept the Internet at home for nonbusiness reasons.
David Egert, an emergency medical technician, said that he frequents the library more often since he disconnected the Internet last fall, after the rabbis' declaration. "I used to use the Internet once a day for research. I would check medical stuff online. Now I either find it in the library or I don't find it," he said.

The number of people using free Internet access at Lakewood's public library in May was 8,248, library officials said, compared with 5,858 the previous May, before the edict. And while no one at the library goes around counting yarmulkes, Orthodox Jews appear to be part of the increase, said Saran Lewis, head of the reference department.

The ban is not absolute. The policy allows rabbis to approve exceptions for parents who need the Internet or e-mail-only services for a home business, as long as they lock computers away from children. Hundreds of Lakewood parents have sought and received rabbis' permissions to keep the Internet for home businesses, rabbis said. The parents have either installed software to monitor where their children browse, or have bought special locks advertised in Lakewood shopping magazines for their computers. Around town, there are plans to open a public Internet center, in an office building on Route 9, for online shopping.

A Lakewood adult, who also would not give his name because he said he feared retribution, said the religious leaders have gone too far. He said he lets his children, yeshiva students, use the Internet at home, though he closely monitors and restricts their use. He said the rabbis should trust parents to run their homes and should rescind the expulsion policy. "Nobody wants to be told how to run their life," the man said. "You don't want someone telling you, 'Put this in this part of the house,' 'Take this out of your house,' and, 'If you don't, then your kid gets thrown out of school.'"