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It took two years to do it, but finally, Jersey City Municipal Court Judge Irwin Rosen is headed back to the bench.

Rosen, president of Temple Beth-El, Jersey City's only Reform congregation, was reinstated as a part-time municipal judge by an 8-0 vote of the Jersey City council in mid-December.

The city had suspended Rosen without pay in the aftermath of charges brought by the state Attorney General's Office in connection with an investigation into ticket-fixing by four municipal judges in the city.

Rosen got a ticket for illegal parking in September 2004 for parking in front of Temple Beth-El on Kennedy Boulevard but, because city parking rules had been suspended that day for Rosh Hashanah, the ticket had been improperly issued.

So Rosen dismissed the ticket -- a move that prompted the state to charge him with wrongdoing.

The matter was scheduled to go to trial in Bergen County Superior Court (after the venue was moved from Hudson) but after legal motions were filed by Rosen's attorney, Peter Willis, the state dropped the charge.

"Having reviewed the totality of the evidence gathered in the course of this investigation and considered all relevant factual and legal circumstances, this office has concluded that dismissal is appropriate and in the best interest of justice," Assistant Attorney General Lewis J. Korngut advised Bergen County Assignment Judge Peter E. Doyne in a letter dated Sept. 3, 2009.

Rosen said he's waiting for the state to clear all his paperwork so that the city can provide him a return date on the municipal court calendar.

"I've already got my robe dry-cleaned," the nine-year jurist quipped. Rosen said he's grateful to his wife, Sharon, whom he called "extremely supportive" during his ordeal, and to his Jersey City attorney, Peter Willis, who, he said, "did a great job for me."

During the drawn-out legal proceedings, "I found out I had more friends than I thought I had," Rosen said, in a recent interview held in his private Journal Square law office.

Rosen, who was permitted to continue his private practice as a real estate law specialist with Pollack & Rosen, credited various attorneys, judges, police, and fire officials around Hudson County who "wrote letters, made phone calls" offering their backing.

"People would stop me on the street and tell me, 'You've got to fight this -- don't give in'," Rosen said. "The response was overwhelming. People I didn't even know, who had read all about the case, would come up to me and say they felt it was an injustice."

Many folks wrote letters to the editor of the local newspaper, The Jersey Journal, expressing their belief in his innocence, Rosen said. "That was unbelievably touching."

One of those letter writers was a former classmate of Rosen's from Jersey City's Public School 25 "whom I haven't been in touch with since graduation," the judge said.

"My father used to tell me, 'When you go through life, always be cognizant of your name and reputation'," Rosen recalled. When his dad heard about the case, "it hurt him, although he knew it was much ado about nothing," Rosen said.

Rosen, 54, said he's come away from the experience with a deeper understanding of the operation of the judicial system.

"Every day, people face prosecution who are not guilty," he said. "That's the way the system works and I consider myself very fortunate that I could stand and fight it. I had the psychological wherewithal to do that, but I know there are people who are charged with criminal offenses every day and who can't do that."

And be assured, Rosen said, that the state "doesn't readily seek dismissals (of charges brought by their legal agents) without very thorough consideration and they needed to be satisfied that dismissal was the right thing to do in my case."

Rosen said his experience reinforced his belief in "the importance of everybody getting his or her day in court -- I continue to recognize that."

After completing his undergraduate degree in political science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Rosen was admitted to Seton Hall Law School and got his law degree in 1980.

"My first job was working for Erwin Pollack in Jersey City and, with the city just beginning its resurgence, I decided to move here," Rosen said. Raised in Jersey City, he'd been living closer to the law school in Newark.

Back in his hometown, Rosen rejoined his old house of worship, Temple Beth-El, where he'd celebrated his bar mitzvah during the tenure of former Rabbi Samuel Berman, and began volunteering for a host of temple activities and offices.

"And the rest is history," he said.

For the last 15 years, Rosen has served as temple president. "I'm most proud of the ability of Rabbi Kenneth Brickman and our congregation to carry on the ideals of Reform Judaism during that time," he said.

While the temple, located at the corner of Kennedy Boulevard and Harrison Avenue, has lost many of its older members who've moved or passed on, Rosen said it has managed to successfully sustain itself "because of an influx of new congregants, predominantly from the downtown Jersey City waterfront community and from Hoboken."

A measure of that growth, he said, is the revived Hebrew school, which now boasts 40 children. It is staffed by Rabbi Brickman; Rabbi Gordon Gladstone, spiritual leader of Temple Beth Am, of Bayonne; and three other teachers.

"For years, there was no school at all," Rosen said.

Rosen points to a letter he received recently from a young congregant as inspiration for the temple's survival. It reads: "Thank you so much for the beautiful Kiddush cup and book! It was so kind of you to come to my service. Some of the experiences at Temple Beth-El I have had (like my Bat Mitzvah) will last forever. I have learned so much! Thank you again."

On Jan. 22, the temple held its 25th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Sabbath Service, with New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (Democrat of East Orange) serving as keynote speaker. Oliver, the first black woman to serve as speaker in the Garden State, spoke about "Celebrating Voices of Diversity."

More than 100 temple members and people from the community attended the event.

"We are continually increasing our outreach, social, and education programming," Rosen said.

An example of that effort, Rosen said, has been the ongoing food drive the temple has been conducting in concert with Clair Memorial United Methodist Church of Jersey City in conjunction with the Community Food Bank of Hillside.

Clair Memorial, the first church in Jersey City built by blacks to found a black congregation, lost its house of worship on Communipaw Avenue -- just a block from Temple Beth-El -- in a devastating fire in April 2001.

Since then, Temple Beth-El has opened its doors to Clair Memorial, having invited its parishioners to hold Easter and regular Sunday services in the temple's social hall, in recognition of which, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) presented both congregations its 2001 Harmony Award for "celebrating amicable relationships between whites and blacks."

"We're looking forward to continuing to service our longtime members and our newcomers for many years to come," Rosen said.