JCRL joins with Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to Challenge Governor Cuomo's Shutdown of Jewish Schools

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have unnecessarily, unscientifically, and wrongly targeted Orthodox Jews for a series of shutdown orders ostensibly designed to restrict COVID-19. These orders are overbroad and target all members of a specific religious and ethnic group—Orthodox Jews—for government disfavor, regardless of whether they have seen COVID-19 infections or not. Governor Cuomo has publicly stated that these new orders are designed to target Orthodox Jews, that the new orders are driven by “fear” rather than science, and that no other government has taken similar measures. He even describes these new orders as cutting with a “hatchet.”

Swept up in this government overreach has been the Lebovits family of Long Island. Yitzchok and Chana Lebovits send their two daughters, one in third grade and one in kindergarten, to Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam (BYAM), an Orthodox Jewish religious girls’ school located in Far Rockaway, New York City. Although BYAM has been open for months with rigorous health protocols, and without a single COVID-19 case, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have shut BYAM down—and deprived the Lebovits girls of an education—simply because it is an Orthodox Jewish school.

On October 16, 2020, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty filed suit against the Cuomo’s and de Blasio’s targeting orders in New York federal district court. Becket and JCRL are urging the court to reverse Cuomo and de Blasio’s unscientific orders and let the Lebovits girls and all of BYAM’s students return to their classrooms.