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Reason
Politics
Josh Blackman

Jewish Plaintiffs in Establishment Clause Cases

I was doing some research on Establishment Clause cases, and noticed the plaintiffs in several leading cases were Jewish. I'm sure I'm missing others.

In Braunfeld v. Brown (1961), Abraham Braunfeld and the other plaintiffs were "member[s] of the Orthodox Jewish faith, which requires the closing of their places of business and a total abstention from all manner of work from nightfall each Friday until nightfall each Saturday."

In Engel v. Vitale (1962), Steven Engel was described as a "devout Reform Jew."

In Flast v. Cohen (1968), the lead plaintiff was Florence Flast. Several sources indicated he was Jewish, but nothing definitive. The other plaintiffs were Albert Shanker, Helen D. Henkin, Frank Abrams, C. Irving Dwork, Florine Levin. I would surmise that at least some of these plaintiffs were Jewish as well. Cohen, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, was Jewish.

In Lee v. Weisman (1992), student Deborah Weisman was Jewish, and objected to a graduation message delivered by Rabbi Leslie Gutterman, of Temple Beth El in Providence.

In Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow (2004), Michael Newdow's mother was "Jewish but secular."

In Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), Susan Galloway was Jewish.

In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), Alton Lemon, the lead plaintiff was not Jewish, but the respondent, David Kurtzman, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, was Jewish.

Update: I found a detailed article that provides a somewhat critical analysis of Jews and the Establishment Clause. Here is a snippet:

Pfeffer and the leading Jewish organizations were gratified by the decisions in McCollum, Torcaso, Engel, and Schempp. These decisions did much more than change the law. They theoretically redefined, in educational institutions throughout America, the place of Christian values and traditions in American culture. Gregg Ivers describes the Engel and Schempp decisions "as the moral equivalent of a dagger through the heart of the traditional Christian values so long embodied in the American civic and religious cultural milieu."268 The alienation and discomfort that Jews had felt on American soil since 1654 were now officially redeemed. The time had come for the nation to journey on a new, secular expressway.

Not all Jews greeted these Court decisions with a spirit of triumph. One Jewish resident of Los Angeles sent Pfeffer the following message: "I feel that because of you and your ilk, in all the civilized nations of the world the most despised, spat upon, hated and shunned person is the Jew."269 Another warned him: "You are getting we [sic] the Jews in a terrible mess, keep it up and we shall all again be persecuted."270 A Christian responded in a similar fashion: "Your motives seem small, petty and personal."271

L. Scott Smith, The Secularization of America's Public Culture: Jews and the Establishment Clause, 32 U. La Verne L. Rev. 257, 293 (2011)

The post Jewish Plaintiffs in Establishment Clause Cases appeared first on Reason.com.

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