Meir Lichtenstein was the Mayor of Lakewood Township, New Jersey, a community of over 60,000 residents in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States, in 2006. Lichtenstein was selected by his fellow members of the Lakewood Township Committee to serve as Mayor at the Township's January 1, 2006 reorganization meeting.[1]
In an interview with the Tri-Town News, Lichtenstein indicated that as Mayor he would seek to strike a "balance in addressing the concerns of merchants, customers and visitors to the downtown area while also ensuring the rights of Lakewood’s day laborer work force", some of whom he said were mistreated or not paid for the work they performed.[1]
A front page article in The Forward profiled Mayor Lichtenstein as the only Haredi mayor in the U.S. of a municipality with a significant non-Jewish population.[2]