R’ Weitman Informs Community of Legal Actions Initiated Against Gov. Cuomo to Reopen Schools

See full case details filed by Lawyers representing BYAM following R’ Weitman’s intro:

Dear Parents,

We hope this note finds you and your loved ones safe and well.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, both the Board and the Hanhalla have remained committed to ensuring that, at all times, our school facility, classrooms, and all interactions are discharged in a safe and legal manner. While this commitment will endure and, in fact, supersede any current Government regulations, the most recent executive orders by Governor Cuomo shuttering our schools indefinitely requires us to consider affirmative steps to protect our students and their families from the inevitable and imminent consequences.

To this end, over the past few weeks a group of highly qualified local attorneys and lay leaders from our community, representing BBY, BYAM, TAG, (TTSY), & YDT (and some neighboring schools (YKLI) in an act of solidarity) have been working in concert exploring all possible remedies to safely get our children back into school.

Only after exhausting all other alternatives, the only viable option to getting our schools reopened is availing ourselves of our government’s justice system. Our friends at Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam have been selected as the lead plaintiff for this lawsuit. BYAM is being represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the co-counsel is the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty.

We want you to know that while BYAM is bringing the lawsuit, they are fighting on our behalf as well. TAG completely supports the efforts of Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam and we could not be more grateful for their diligent work towards this case for one singular purpose: the kids, the kids, and the kids. We want to do everything we can to get our students back into school in a legal and safe manner.

We are hopeful that the siyata dishmaya that we hope for and need to be successful will be deserved in the merit of the achdus and complete collaborative effort with which this endeavor has been undertaken. Please join us in davening for the success of Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam and the entire community.

More information about the case can be found here: https://www.becketlaw.org/case/lebovits-v-cuomo/

Sincerely,

Rabbi Meyer Weitman
Dean

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CASE SNAPSHOT

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 is 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.

STATUS

This case has been filed in the District Court for the Northern District of New York.

CASE SUMMARY

A long-standing Jewish tradition

Opened in 2012, Bais Yaakov Ateres Miriam is an Orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Far Rockaway, New York City, that stands in a long tradition of Jewish schools founded to teach young women about their faith. The first Bais Yaakov school was founded in 1917 in Poland, to provide an alternative to secular education that did not support and educate young Jewish women on the history and traditions of their faith. Today, BYAM celebrates Jewish holidays, holds communal prayers, and engages in group projects and exegetical debates—activities that are central to the traditions of Orthodox Judaism.

Yitzchok and Chana Lebovits moved to their current home precisely because they wanted to give their girls a great Jewish education at BYAM. But without the opportunity to embrace their unique cultural, linguistic and religious heritage—teaching and learning that can only properly be done in-person—the Lebovits girls and other young Jewish girls are deprived of an irreplaceable opportunity to learn and live out their faith. Yitzchok and Chana are being hindered in passing on their Jewish beliefs and practices on to their daughters.

In March, BYAM voluntarily transitioned to remote learning to protect their neighbors and in compliance with the law. In the months that followed the school spent thousands of dollars equipping the entire school with Wi-Fi, purchasing additional laptops and tablets for teachers to use while offering remote instruction, and to pay for transportation for teachers who would normally use buses to get to school. Nevertheless, remote learning proved to be a poor substitute for in-person instruction. As the state began to reopen over the summer, BYAM looked forward to opening safely, responsibly and cooperatively.

And it did just that. In the first month of school, BYAM handed out hundreds of masks and implemented many safety and hygiene protocols to ensure the safety of students and community members, including social distancing and daily temperature checks. The happy result of those comprehensive efforts has been zero cases of COVID-19 in the school. BYAM has thus become a safe haven for girls to gather and learn about their religious heritage.

Cuomo and de Blasio crack down on Jews

Unfortunately, the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City has been singled out by the government as the scapegoats for COVID-19 spread since the beginning of the pandemic. In April of 2020, Mayor de Blasio dispersed a Jewish funeral and then threatened them with law enforcement. During the subsequent summer – while Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio praised nearby mass protests, Jewish families were ousted from Brooklyn parks by the New York Police Department acting at the behest of the Mayor.

But, despite doing everything right, BYAM has been caught in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s crusade against Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. After months of scapegoating Jews for coronavirus infections in New York City, in late September/early October 2020 Cuomo and de Blasio announced a plan to target “microclusters” of COVID-infections in New York City by locking down Jewish neighborhoods and schools. On October 6 – just before three important Jewish holy days – Governor Cuomo issued an executive order that shut impending Jewish celebrations down, claiming that mildly elevated rates of positive coronavirus tests justified extraordinary emergency powers, while at the same time admitting that those elevated rates “would be a safe zone” in many other states.

Remarkably, 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.”

Protecting the fundamental right of religious education

Remote learning has taken a serious toll on the educational opportunities for the Lebovits girls and other BYAM students. Teachers have reported alarming regression in reading skills, had to reteach prayers, and are requesting last year’s math textbooks. In many cases, students have tested a full year below grade level in both Hebrew and English reading.

The government’s attempt to close BYAM is a direct threat to the future of the Jewish faith tradition that Bais Yaakov schools have been teaching for over a hundred years. By putting Jewish religious education on hold indefinitely, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio aren’t just halting educational growth, they are stifling the religious exercise of Jewish families, and depriving the Lebovits girls of part of their childhood.

Now, the Lebovitses and BYAM are taking Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to court, so BYAM can reopen their doors and continue exercising their protected First Amendment right to pass their faith on to the next generation of Jewish women. Becket and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty represent the Lebovits family and BYAM in the federal District Court for the Northern District of New York, where the school is urging the court to step in and protect their religious education from the state’s discriminatory shutdown order.

Importance to Religious Liberty: 

Religious Communities: Religious groups have the right to form their own institutions and to pass their teachings down to the next generation. Schools like BYAM, which help preserve the Jewish faith and instill Jewish values in the next generation, are constitutionally protected from government restrictions that single them out for unfair treatment.