c. 1996 Religion News Service

New York court rejects special district for Hasidic Jewish community

(RNS) A school district specially created by the state of New York to accommodate the handicapped children of the Hasidic Jewish village of Kiryas Joel, is illegal, a state court ruled Monday (Aug. 26).

The law creating the special district was the second effort by the state and the enclave, located in the Catskill Mountains, to create a school district that would allow the Hasidic Jews to receive public funds for educating their handicapped children without having to mix with non-Hasidic pupils.

In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a previous state move to create the special district was unconstitutional, prompting then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and the state legislature to devise a second plan for creating special school districts for which only Kiryas Joel would qualify.”The current law brings about precisely the same result as the prior law, the creation of a special school district for the village of Kiryas Joel and no other municipality in the state,”a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court said in a 4-1 ruling.

It called the new law a”subterfuge”and a”camouflage”designed only to help the Hasidic village.

George Shebitz, a lawyer for Kiryas Joel said the village would appeal the decision.

The village, located about 45 miles north of New York City, is made up entirely of about 12,000 Satmar Hasidic Jews. Nearly all of its children study in private schools. The village has been seeking for seven years to establish a special public school district that would be eligible for federal and state aid to educate a dozen handicapped children and 250 learning disabled children rather than have them attend a nearby public school.

The American Jewish Congress welcomed the ruling.”Once again, the New York Courts have declared the obvious: that a public school district set up solely for the benefit of one religious group is an unconstitutional establishment of religion,”said Marc D. Stern, co-director of the AJC’s Commission on Law and Social Action.

Stern said the decision”recognizes that the constitutional principle that government and religion remain separate is too important to be covered by legislative figleaves of the sort before the Court.”

To mark Labor Day, religious groups urge justice for workers, aid to poor

(RNS) Religious groups are urging Americans to mark Labor Day by committing themselves to work for justice for working people and to aid the poor and needy.”On this Labor Day, in the midst of this growing national debate on economic life, the Catholic community must continue to speak for poor children and working families,”said Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., the author of this year’s annual Labor Day statement of the U.S. Catholic Conference.”We need to get beyond some of the false choices and ideological polarization in the economic debate and join in a renewed search for the common good in economic life,”he said.

Skylstad said the nation needs to get beyond all of the campaign rhetoric of the current presidential campaign, which traditionally begins on Labor Day, and to”refocus on some traditional values from Catholic teaching _ the dignity of work, the living wage, the social contract between employer and employee and the common good.”It is time to recall that in our tradition, people have a right and duty to work, to decent conditions and to a fair wage for an honest day’s work, to organize and join a union, to start and build a business,”he said.

The Chicago-based National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice noted that Labor Day”was a hard-earned holiday (that) comes out of the struggles of working people to be treated with respect and dignity”and decried the growing gap between the rich and poor in the nation.”Whatever optimism can be voiced this year about the state of labor-management relations in America must be dampened by the realization that the basic thrust of industry is in the direction of material gains rather than human gains,”the interfaith group said in a statement.”If it is the bottom line that counts, it is the bottom line of profits rather than human happiness.”Once again, the religious community is called upon to assert the dignity of labor and to defend the rights of those who labor in their ongoing encounter with those who are able to dictate the terms of labor,”it said.

Church officials find Bosnia threatened by ultra-nationalists

(RNS) The Rev. Jean Fischer, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches, has warned that the elections next month in Bosnia are likely to strengthen the influence of religion-based ultra-nationalists in the region.

Fischer said that elections, called for by the Dayton agreement that brought an end to fighting between Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians, could have an opposite effect than intended.”The (religious and ethnic) communities are very much separated,”Fischer told Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”Even in a town like Banja Luka (Bosnia), where there are still a few residents of all three religious communities, with a bishop for each of the Christian communities and a mufti for the Muslims, the minorities have little contact with the majority because many people live in fear.””But the challenge of the Dayton agreement was for people to go back to where they lived,”he said.”People have been told that those who do not have blood on their hands are welcome to go back to their homes. But they are still frightened.” The result, he said, is that”if the elections are held, what takes place will reinforce the ultra-nationalist parties which are totalitarian in their approach, refusing to accept opposition.” He said the ultra-nationalists, who already hold power in the communities in which they are a majority, will only be legitimized and will”facilitate the grip they already have on the media, on local government. This is a long way from democratic life.” Fear, he said, is making people vote along ethnic and religious lines.”A lot of time will be needed (for goodwill to return), after four years of such a terrible war,”he said.”You can’t expect people to just come back together. There is too much fear, too much hatred, and that is being fueled by campaigning by the ultra-nationalist political formations.” “Magic Rock”teacher’s rights were violated by firing

(RNS) The rights of a school teacher who was fired because she gave her students”magic rocks”to boost their morale were violated by her dismissal, a jury in Springfield, Mo., ruled Monday (Aug. 26).

A U.S. District Court jury ordered the Strafford public school system to pay teacher Leslie Cowan the $18,000 salary she lost when the school board refused to rehire her for the 1993-94 school year, the AP reported.

Lawyers for the school district argued that Cowan, a second-grade teacher, was let go because of poor performance. Cowan, however, argued she was not rehired because some parents and a local preacher complained about the”magic rocks.” At the end of the school year in 1992, Cowan sent 20 of her students home with smooth glass rocks and notes that read:”The magic rock you have will always let you know that you can do anything that you set your mind to. To make the rock work, close you (sic) eyes, rub it and say to yourself three times, `I am a special and terrific person, with talents of my own!’ Before you put your rock away, think of three good things about yourself. After you have put your rock away, you will know that the magic has worked.” Cowan said the rock was meant to be a morale-booster and had nothing to do with religion. But critics suggested the rocks were representative of”new Age-ism and occultism,”her lawyer said.

A spokesman for the school system said it has not decided whether to appeal but probably will if the court orders Cowan reinstated. A hearing will be held later on that issue.

Quote of the day: Larry Page, executive director of the Christian Civic Action Committee on Christian activism.

(RNS) Larry Page, executive director of the Christian Civic Action Committee, a moral and social action group based in Little Rock, Ark., recently led a successful petition drive to put a proposed amendment to Arkansas’ constitution on the November ballot. The amendment would bar all legalized gambling in the state. Baptist Press, the official news agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, quoted Page on Christian activism in politics:”What is needed is for Christians to realize that while we are citizens of heaven, we are also citizens of this state and nation. We are responsible for the kind of laws that are enacted. If we think our current laws are contrary to the Bible and run afoul of Judeo-Christian values, then we have every right under the Constitution to mobilize our people to go to the polls and vote in keeping with the values we cherish so highly.”

MJP END RNS