Just as Texas families are returning to their homes to assess the damage and rebuild, millions of Americans, including a significant number of Jewish families, are leaving their homes or getting prepared to face one of the most powerful hurricanes in recent history. Agudath Israel leaders are coordinating with other organizations in order to be able to respond to the looming crisis as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  • New York lost a great public servant and Agudath Israel lost a good friend with the passing of Assemblyman Michael Simanowitz.
  • In Maryland, the Northwest Citizens Patrol (of which I was once a proud member) thanked Rabbi Ariel Sadwin and Governor Larry Hogan for a state security grant. To read more about the exciting development see here.
  • In an important case that attracted a friend of the court brief from Agudath Israel of America, the New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has rejected an attempt to legalize physician-assisted suicide and to declare a constitutional right to “aid in dying”.
  • On the federal level, Agudath Israel of America has filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the Court’s most closely watched religious liberty cases in recent years, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Allowing for further erosion in free exercise protection, the Agudath Israel brief cautioned, would be a betrayal of the core value of religious liberty that stands as one of the bedrock principles upon which America was founded. Agudath Israel also participated in a broader Orthodox Jewish amicus curiae  brief, authored by legendary attorney Nathan Lewin on behalf of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) and joined in by a number of Orthodox organizations.
  • The profound importance of immigration to our nation, and to the Jewish community in particular, make it an area of compelling concern to our constituency, and we issued a statement on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).

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