"No big hats"
-
“If it’s in a neighborhood school district,” said one of those present, identified in those filings as the school board president, “we don’t mind if it is a Black person or a Haitian-speaking person.”
The mayor was more direct, it was alleged.
“That’s what has to happen in order to keep our community being taken over by guys with big hats and curls,” he said, referring to the growing Jewish community in Linden — a phrase clearly taking note of the wide-brim black hats and payot, or curled sidelocks, traditionally worn by some Orthodox men.
In a whistleblower lawsuit filed on Thursday, Paul Oliveira, who served as Linden’s assistant school superintendent, accused Mayor Derek Armstead, as well as school board president Marlene Berghammer, Superintendent Atiya Y. Perkins, and others of blatant antisemitism in what was called an effort to deliberately exclude Jews from employment with the schools.
The mayor, one of 11 Democrats running in a special election this summer to finish the unexpired term of U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., denied the allegations, calling them “hogwash.”
Much of the conversation focused on whether prospective hires, including hall monitors, para-professionals, teachers and other staff, were from Linden, which the mayor said should be the top consideration.
“I don’t care what they are,” Armstead said on the recording, in response to the school board president’s call for Black or Haitian candidates. “If they’re from the general area here, that’s what we’re trying to build here. That’s what has to happen in order to keep our community being taken over by guys with big hats and curls and I’m just keeping it real. And if people don’t understand that, you know, we are really trying to save our community here.”
At one point, Berghammer asked “do we have demographics” as to the race or ethnicity of applicants.
“You can almost figure that out by the name sometimes,” Armstead suggested.
He also complained of one prospective maintenance worker who failed to show up for a training session and then left Linden, selling his home to someone in the Jewish community.
“Moved out of town,” Armstead said. “He sold his house to the guys with the big hats and the curls too. So, you know, everybody’s undermining the progress we’re trying to make here in town.”
