Israel Schenkolewski, a beloved Lakewood rabbi and a powerful player in Ocean County politics, died today after a long illness. He was 80.
Schenkolewski was among the pioneers in Lakewood’s use of block voting on a bi-partisan basis in order to maximize the township’s influence in county and state elections. By the late 1990s, The Vaad, an organization of local rabbis, was formed and continues to deliver Stackesque margins in Lakewood.
He was a former chairman of the Lakewood Zoning Board and was a longtime commissioner of the Ocean County Board of Elections and Lakewood Police Department chaplain.
In the 1990s, prosecutors unfairly accused Schenkolewski of trading donations to two parochial schools in Lakewood in exchange for support of a power plant. A judge dismissed indictments against him twice.