The Lakewood community has been captivated by the candidacy of Agudah NJ Director Avi Schnall for State Assembly. His bid for office marks the first-ever opportunity for Lakewood residents to elect a frum resident – one of their own – to the Legislature. His opponent has noticed.
Assemblyman Ned Thomson, feeling the heat from the surging Schnall candidacy, has unfortunately waded into antisemitic race-baiting and dog-whistling to shore up support for his reelection bid in the 30th Legislative District.
Just this weekend, Thomson released an ad castigating Schnall as a “Lakewood rabbi” – a curious reference to both his town of residency and Jewish faith that had nothing to do with Thomson’s argument for why voters should elect him to another term in office, other than to rile up antisemites in the district.
It’s not the first time either that Thomson has quietly given the nod to bigots and antisemites. Throughout his campaign, Thomson and his team have kept a close eye on his campaign’s social media pages, making sure to delete any comment that doesn’t fit their narrative of Thomson being an effective legislator. However, blatantly antisemitic comments targeting Avi Schnall were kept on their pages – a phenomenon that unfortunately cannot be innocently explained away.
Thomson’s appeal to antisemites is both shameful and tragic, but also should not be of any great surprise, considering that he has no record to run on. The assemblyman has introduced 188 bills over his 7 years in office. Just one – legislation pertaining to oyster farms – has been signed into law. Another bill on which he joined as a primary sponsor and for which he is taking credit, was actually introduced by liberal Democrats, with Thomson adding his name to it after its introduction.