US Supreme Court Sides With Lakewood Rabbi On Gathering Limits

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with a Lakewood rabbi and a North Jersey priest who filed suit in May claiming New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's ban on public gatherings and a stay-at-home order violated religious protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Rabbi Yisrael A. Knopfler of Lakewood and the Rev. Kevin Robinson, a priest at St. Anthony of Padua Church in North Caldwell, filed suit in federal court in May over the gatherings ban, which was put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit sought an injunction barring New Jersey from applying more-restrictive limits on indoor public gatherings to in-person religious worship than are applied to "comparable secular activities," such as the capacity limits on essential retail businesses or non-retail establishments.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the petition for an injunction and ordered the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to decide the case in line with a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court issued in late November in a New York lawsuit.

In that case, the court barred authorities from enforcing attendance restrictions at churches and synagogues in the midst of the pandemic.

The ban on religious gatherings in New Jersey has been a contentious one going back to before Easter. One gathering broken up in Lakewood during the initial days of Murphy's stay-at-home order in March was of a group of men who gathered for religious studies. Knopfler was arrested in mid-May following a religious gathering that drew about 20 men, in violation of what was a 10-person limit at that time.

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