Agudath Israel asks Supreme Court to end Cuomo’s COVID-19 restrictions
Image by getty images
By David Ian Klein November 18, 2020
Agudath Israel, the largest ultra-Orthodox umbrella group in the United States, has filed an injunction with the U.S. Supreme Court to block Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s October orders restricting attendance at houses of worship to 10 or 25, depending on local coronavirus infectivity rates.
Agudath Israel argues that the governor’s restriction specifically targets the Jewish community.
“History has shown us that in challenging and uncertain times, religious minorities, and Jews in particular, are often the first to have their rights curtailed. For this instance, and for all future instances, we cannot allow this to rest unchallenged,” said Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudah’s executive vice president in a statement.
Cuomo’s orders have been met with heavy pushback from the Orthodox community in Brooklyn and outside New York City whose neighborhoods were at the center of “red zones” where the heaviest restrictions were put into place.
However, many of those neighborhoods had positivity rates around 10% and higher, well above the 3% positivity rate, that designates an area a “focus zone.”
The Agudath’s suit comes just days after a similar move by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.
In neighboring New Jersey, while general indoor gatherings are limited to 10 individuals, religious and political gatherings protected under the first amendment have an exemption allowing for 25% of a room’s capacity of upto 150 individuals.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
