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October 24, 2002
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations Hails Federal
Appeals Court Ruling Against New Jersey Town's
Religious Discrimination; “Tenafly Eruv Will
Stay Up”
Today, the Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations of America – the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella
organization – hailed a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for
the Third Circuit defending religious liberty and rejecting religious
bigotry as ruled against a decision by the elected officials of Tenafly,
New Jersey to discourage Orthodox Jews from moving into that affluent New
York City suburb.
The
legal dispute arises from Tenafly’s determination to prevent Orthodox Jews
who have recently moved to the town from erecting an “eruv,” a religious
demarcation of area that allows Orthodox Jews to freely exercise their
religious liberty to observe the Sabbath. According to Jewish Law, an
Orthodox Jew may not convey moveable items from private property to public
property (and vice versa) on the Sabbath without a symbolic demarcation of
the area allowing him to do so. Such a demarcation can be accomplished by
utilizing existing utility poles and wires, with minimal additions
unrecognizable to the casual observer. The demarcation, or “eruv,” would
allow parents of young children to be able to push strollers or the
elderly or disabled to use wheelchairs and attend synagogue on the Sabbath
and participate in communal prayers. Despite having erected the “eruv”
with the consent of Bergen County, the Town of Tenafly denied the Jews
permission to use its right-of-way for the “eruv” and ordered it taken
down. The denial appears to have been motivated by a desire to dissuade
Orthodox Jews from moving into Tenafly in larger numbers.
A
federal trial judge upheld the town’s actions, that ruling has now been
reversed. In its ruling, the
appeals court stated that - in denying permission to erect the eruv on the
town’s utility poles while other items could be erected on those same
poles for non-religious reasons -Tenafly was “selectively” applying this
ordinance in a manner that “violates the neutrality [toward religion]
principle” required by the Constitution because it “singles out the
[Orthodox Jews’] religiously motivated conduct for discriminatory
treatment.” The appeals court ordered the district court to enter an
injunction barring the town from denying the eruv.
The Union had filed a “friend of
the court” brief with the appeals court, authored by the Union’s legal
affairs director Nathan Diament and joined by the American Jewish
Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Commission on Social Action of Reform
Judaism, Hadassah, and Rabbinical Council of America, and can be found at
--
http://www.ou.org/public/Publib/briefs.htm
Nathan Diament stated that
“the Orthodox Jewish community is deeply gratified that the federal
appeals court recognized Tenafly’s actions for what they were – religious
bigotry. No elected officials should be able to use local ordinances to
exclude people from a town because of their religion. The Tenafly eruv
will stay up; religious bigotry has been defeated and America is the
better for it.”
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