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ASBURY PARK PRESS

FRIDAY 04.17.15

Floundering around
Is this season a washout or just warming up? HOOK, LINE & SINKER, 1E

Governor
takes jabs
at four GOP
contenders

IRS DECLARES
THIS BOY DEAD

BOB JORDAN @BOBJORDANAPP

CONCORD, N.H. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on
the Today show took a swipe at four fellow contenders
for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose status as
the frontrunner is crumbling in Christies view.
Christie said in the interview taped in New Hampshire and aired Thursday that Bushs momentum is like
a train that has slowed down pretty significantly from
what Ive seen out and around the country.
The previous day, Christie said Bush didnt seem up
to speed on current foreign policy, adding, The one
speech that hes given so far, I thought was rather general.
Bush shot back when asked for reaction, saying of
Christie: Who?
Bush arrived in New Hampshire Thursday and
made a stop at a backhills snow shoe club to speak to a
group of local Republicans.
Im going to talk about foreign policy a lot and Im

See TODAY, Page 6A

INSIDE
Christie pressed on teacher pensions at town hall, 13A
PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Tyler Andrew Washington is dead, according to rulings by the Social Security Administration and the IRS.

For Holocaust
survivor, a bar
mitzvah decades
in the making
JEAN MIKLE @JEANMIKLE
TOMS RIVER As Manfred Lindenbaum recited
blessings over the Torah at Congregation Bnai Israel
Thursday morning, his 13-year-old grandson stood
alongside him. Lindenbaum said he felt there were others right beside him, too, as he chanted the Hebrew
verses with a wide smile.
My Zaida, he said, using the Yiddish word for
grandfather, my father, my mother, my aunt and uncle
who brought me to America, my sister, Ruth. My parents and my sister, they were all murdered in the Holocaust. But I felt their presence. I felt them beside me.
Today, Jackson resident Lindenbaum, 82, and his
youngest grandson, Jason, will each celebrate a bar
mitzvah. A bar mitzvah is the religious coming-of-age
ritual that signifies they have accepted the responsibilities of adulthood in the Jewish community, and have
pledged to live by the Torahs commandments. Lindenbaum, who was only 6 years old when he and his brother
fled Poland just days before World War II, never had a
bar mitzvah, which typically occurs when a boy
reaches age 13.

But Tyler is alive. Learn how a government agency erased

one boys life and fixed it after the Press got involved.
KEN SERRANO @KENSERRANOAPP

Meet Tyler Andrew Washington.

Hes dead.
That is, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
The 12-year-old boy, who rides a scooter, wishes he had a girlfriend and keeps a large,
framed photo of a tractor-trailer owned by his dads friend over his bed, is very much alive.
But shortly after his mother died two years ago, he was declared deceased by the Social
Security Administration. His aunt, Ellen Mirasola of Jackson, and his dad, Miguel Washington, have battled several agencies of the federal government to right the error.
The erroneous information in the IRS system came from the Social Security Administration.
After the Asbury Park Press called the administration Friday, a spokesman apologized to
Mirasola within an hour and promised to immediately fix the glitch that got into the IRSs
system, Mirasola said.
Its unknown how quickly that will happen. With another April 15 Tax Day past, Tylers
erroneous death haunts the family. Last year, Miguel Washington successfully filed his 2013
tax return that listed Tyler as a dependent. But this year, the E-File system would not allow
him to do the same. IRS staff told the 55-year-old Washington it was because his son was listed
as dead, Washington said.
See TYLER, Page 6A

Hes a 12-year-old kid. Somebodys got to clear this up. What happens in
five or six years when he goes to get a job? And I dont want to see this
happen to someone elses kid.
MIGUEL WASHINGTON,

TYLER WASHINGTONS FATHER

See SURVIVE, Page 9A

ARMY MORALE STARTLINGLY LOW PAGE 1B

BOB BIELK/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Manfred Lindenbaum (center) puts on tefillin with his

grandson Jason Lindenbaum and Hazzan Steven Walvick.

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Parents of more than

14 percent of N.J.
11th-graders refused
the PARCC test for
their children. STORY, 3A
11A
14A
1C
7C
10A

VOLUME 136
NUMBER 92

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