Diana Robinson via Wikimedia Commons

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bungled response to COVID-19 has turned the nation’s largest metropolis into a disease-infested hotspot rife with economic and social tensions. Now parents in the city’s sizeable Orthodox Jewish community are asking a court to enjoin further restrictions on private education described in a suit as being “unscientific and discriminatory” in their origin because they prevent children enrolled in religious schools from attending them.

On Monday Yitzchok and Chana Lebovits — whose daughters attend the all-girl Bais Yaakov Ateres private school — asked a New York judge to prevent Cuomo’s latest anti-COVID-19 restrictions from taking effect specifically on the grounds they target the Orthodox Jewish community. Backed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, public-interest legal organization protecting religious freedom and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, the Lebovits want new regulations leading to school closures issued by Cuomo on October 6 set aside.

“We are devastated for our daughters and their classmates who are needlessly suffering because of the governor’s policy,” Mrs. Lebovits said. “Governor Cuomo should not take away part of my daughters’ childhood because other people are afraid of Orthodox Jews. We hope the court will let our daughters go back to school so they can pray and learn together with their classmates.”

The new restrictions ban completely in-person instruction at BYAM and other schools in Jewish neighborhoods in New York City, effectively infringing severely on the rights of parents to direct the religious education and upbringing of their children. The restrictions come after months of Cuomo and de Blasio’s apparent scapegoating of the Orthodox community, blaming them for the virus’s spread throughout the city while they were at the same time not only failing to condemn but praising the mass protests against economic and racial inequality that in some cases led to violence and looting in Manhattan.

In early October, a federal judge in New York found the new restrictions did specifically target the Orthodox Jewish community, laying the groundwork for the suit. “There is no place for bigotry in the Big Apple,” said Mark Rienzi, Becket president, and senior counsel.

“By Cuomo’s own admission, schools are not significant spreaders of COVID-19, and the new policy was not driven by science but was made from ‘fear’—fear of Orthodox Jews. Cuomo and de Blasio need to follow the science, follow the law, and stop scapegoating Jews. The Mayor and the Governor should be ashamed,” Rienzi added, referring to comments Cuomo can be overheard making during a telephone conversation with leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community. In that conversation, a copy of which was given to the New York media, the governor admits the policies he has put in place to lock down the state and keep residents confined to the homes and children out of school were based on political concerns, not science.

Critics have argued the measures taken by Cuomo and de Blasio to prevent the virus from spreading may have instead hastened its introduction into vulnerable population groups, especially among seniors and others living in nursing homes. The World Health Organization and others have recently concluded the number of deaths in nursing homes attributed to the disease is considerably higher than those occurring in the rest of the population.

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Peter Roff is affiliated with several Washington, D.C. public policy organizations and is a former U.S. News and World Report contributing editor who appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.

Comments

  1. The Jews voted this fool in and gave him the financial support to win. They are also responsible for Mayor Bill De Blasio. They got what they voted for. Want to get RID of those two? Fund a recall OR support a conservative – including President Donald Trump who has been ripped by Jewish owned media

      1. They always back the people trying to rid the world of them, they back anti israel obama, Cuomo, Biden and always the worst people that support the mullahs

  2. And even with all the abuse this twit gives to theJewish community they still vote for him. You guys need to try republican, just once, and see what you’re missing.

  3. Each & every resident of NYC has to take responsibility for who they give power to on Election Day. The Mayor & Governor are attempting to keep NYC closed for strictly political reasons – your best interests are not important to them. I find it frightening that children are not permitted to attend classes. Perhaps when casting your vote in future years it would be wise to think it over.

  4. It seems the old Jewish habit of supporting their own worst enemies is once again biting them on their asses. Will they ever learn? I have my doubts.
    It often makes me wonder just how many Jews in Germany in 1933 actually voted for Adolf Hitler….

  5. This is not the first not will it be the last time that small, narrow minded and bigoted people have attacked people of faith and their educational faith based system. If those of the Jewish faith are on the chopping block, you can be sure that, in time Catholics and Protestant faiths will not be far behind with their persecution.
    The reality is not the with the people who are being persecuted but what these people choose believe. The concept/belief in a divine, supreme being, AKA, God, is mind boggling to the unbeliever and is their total reason for persecution of those who do believe.
    History has proven time and time again that, those of faith will eventually persevere. Long after these persecutors are dead, long gone and forgotten, those of faith will continue to grow in spite of them and their feeble attempts to eliminate them.
    Stay strong ye of faith, because the right and the mite of your God will sustain you!

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