Distrust has spread, and each side has accused the other of bad faith and bigotry.

“It’s ominous,” said Steven Sanders, a former New York City assemblyman who was chairman of the State Assembly’s Education Committee. “This is not going to be an isolated situation. This is a worrisome trend. The common thread is not religion. The common thread is people who don’t feel invested in educating other people’s children. What do you do when a community is significantly comprised of individuals who don’t have a stake in public schools when they’re already spending for private schools? It’s a fracturing of the social compact.”

Image Lakewood, N.J., a town of 74,000 with an Orthodox Jewish population estimated at more than 35,000, has about 6,750 black residents. Credit... Laura Pedrick for The New York Times

Some Atlantic Beach residents have explored seceding from the Lawrence district and merging with Long Beach, although the process would be daunting.

MANY who object to the Orthodox dominance question their motives. “If your kids don’t go to public schools, how can you be head of the board?” said Robert Smith, who is a resident of Inwood, which is also part of the Lawrence school district, and who works at a community center. “It’s forcing people out.”

Mr. Kaufman, the school board member who said fears about the new Orthodox majority were misplaced, has nonetheless joked about needing a bulletproof vest, and at a board meeting this summer angrily admonished some foes as “you public school parents.”

Mr. Kaufman was furious when the departing board approved a teachers’ contract without the performance standards he had wanted. “What the lame duck board did was undemocratic,” he said. “My three-year term was usurped by a five-year contact. We’re not going to be able to do anything we wanted to do. I don’t know where we’re going to get the money.”

Defenders of the contract say its annual raises — from zero to 2.75 percent — are below inflation.

The rift took a litigious turn in June when the incoming Orthodox majority went to court in an unsuccessful bid to block the old board from approving the teachers’ contract. Then in July, Fu-Yun Tang, a mother of three Lawrence students, formally petitioned state education officials to remove three Orthodox school board members from office, accusing them of “furthering an anti-public school agenda.” A decision is not expected for months.

Acknowledging the divide, Mr. Hiller, a recent yeshiva graduate, said: “They think they’re right, and we think we’re right. But I’m very happy about the new school board.”