Home-schooling parents of various Christian faiths sued a number of Pennsylvania School Districts, claiming that the Home-schooling Act’s record-keeping requirements and the school districts’ review of that material to ascertain whether the Act’s requirements are being met, violate 1) their religious freedom under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as (2) the Pennsylvania Religious Freedom Protection Act (RFPA). The parents argued that it is their religious responsibility to educate their own kids (“and thou shall teach them to thy children when thou risest up ….etc.”).

All three appellate judges agreed that plaintiffs’ religious freedoms were in no way violated, because Judge Scalia’s majority 1990 decision in Smith v. Employment Division, in a case involving an Indian tribes’ use of peyote in a religious ceremony, concluded (to the chagrin of all freedom-loving people) that a law of general applicability, even if it burdens a particular religious practice, need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest; if there is any rational basis for the law, it will be constitutional. The Home-schooling Act is a law of general applicability, hence it is constitutional even when it impinges on someone’s religion.

The Smith decision was the reason Pennsylvania, and so far 12 other states, enacted RFPA, requiring that a law that impinges on religious freedom must be justified by a compelling governmental interest (i.e., must be analyzed under a “strict scrutiny” rather than a mere “rational basis” standard). Two of the three judges, however, decided not to address the RFPA issue because the Pennsylvania Supreme court has never considered its validity, and they remanded the case to the district court with instructions that the judge remand the case back to the state court on that issue. This was entirely consistent with JSPAN’s amicus brief, in which we “urge[d] the court to develop the law in this area gradually, guided by the twin principles of deciding only questions necessary to the disposition of the case at hand, and avoiding rulings broader than required by the facts at bar (citation omitted)”.

The third judge (Chief Judge Scirica) however, felt that since the district court had decided both the federal constitutional issue as well as the RFPA issue, the appellate court should too, and then went on to write an opinion that the RFPA requires proof by clear and convincing evidence that one has been compelled to violate “a specific tenet” of his/her faith. But plaintiffs claim is that “no level of state review would be permissible”, and that is not a “specific tenet”; and in referring only to broad general tenets, like their responsibility to educate their own kids, they seem to be reading the adjective “specific” out of the statute. Hence, there was no “clear and convincing” evidence that the parents will likely be compelled to violate a specific tenet of their faith.

Therefore the parents' claim that the Home-Schooling Act violates the RFPA fails.

To read the Third Circuit decision, click here.

On August 11, 2008 a group of JSPAN leaders met with Representative Lawrence Curry to discuss the unusual handling of redistricting reform legislation in the Pennsylvania House this Spring. Representative Babette Josephs had scheduled public hearings and a vote in the Government Operations Committee, but at the last minute Josephs cancelled the vote that might have reported a reform bill out to the House of Representatives. Josephs claims to be working on an alternative reform package, and Representative Curry, who did not support the primary bill before the Josephs Committee, has just introduced his own alternative (HB 2734). JSPAN, which has pressed for reform of our gerrymander redistricting process, was interested in what Rep. Curry had to say about his new bill and the about-face this Spring.

The Curry bill continues the old process by which the two majority and two minority leaders of the State House and Senate select one additional person and the five are the redistricting committee. Curry would keep the four political leaders but have the Pennsylvania Supreme Court select three non-governmental representatives to sit with them. Although agreeing that many present voting districts in Pennsylvania are very badly drawn, Curry states that he has faith in the majority and minority leaders to produce a suitable redistricting map in the future.

Board members present at the meeting expressed their appreciation to Rep. Curry for his interest in addressing the gerrymander problems that grow out of redistricting every decade. While JSPAN does not agree with the approach he advocates because it retains most of the present partisan structure, in submitting a bill Rep. Curry does recognize the desire of the public to see reforms to the process as soon as possible.

JSPAN has submitted testimony, written articles and engaged program speakers supporting better, less politically partisan ways to redistrict. The political party leaders naturally approach redistricting as, first of all, a test of how many incumbents’ seats they can protect. Required by changes in population to redraw the maps, they utilize advanced computer programs to assemble districts in which the outcome of the general election is virtually assured, even in the face of a citizen revolt.

As Ken Myers pointed out to Representative Curry, despite the vibrant taxpayer revolt in the 2007 elections, of 25 state senate seats up for election, not a single one moved from one party to the other.

Jeff Pasek explored with Curry whether some form of citizen activity might lead the legislature to actually pass redistricting reform. Curry suggested that it would have to be a coordinated effort by Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate, driven by substantial citizen forces.

JSPAN Policy Position: The House Committee hearings this Spring under Josephs heard testimony on four bills to reform redistricting. One of the bills that Josephs allowed to die enjoyed the support of 80 members of the House! These bills would substitute citizen participation for the present committee of four politicians and their single designee. JSPAN continues to support the legislative policies expressed in these bills, rather than an effort to expand the citizen minority on the existing committee of political leaders.

To read a follow-up letter sent to Rep. Curry affirming the JSPAN position on redistricting, click here.

Ragan Henry died last month. He was, in the words of The Philadelphia Inquirer, "a pioneering media mogul, an active participant in Philadelphia's civic life, and one of the region's richest African Americans." Reading his obituary brought back both warm personal memories and renewed appreciation of the immense social upheavals of the 1960s.

It was mid-1961 when Judge Raymond Pace Alexander called me (in 1955 I had assisted him in an early attempt to desegregate Girard College) and asked whether my three-person law firm, Narin, Garfinkel & Mann, might be interested in hiring a young black Harvard law school graduate – top third of his class – who had so far failed to find employment in any large big-city firm. We were the beneficiaries of the bigotry throughout the land, and Ragan became our very first associate.

This was three years before the Kennedy-Johnson Civil Rights legislation, and before most of the major Philadelphia law firms were hiring even Jewish law graduates, no matter how sterling their qualifications, much less black law graduates, even those with Ragan’s extraordinary skills. “Affirmative action” was not yet in our vocabulary. In 1964 that quite suddenly changed. Many of our largest law firms began hiring Jews, even in some profusion, and searched for at least a “token” black.

By 1965 we had merged our firm – now six lawyers in all – into a much larger firm and Ragan in the late sixties, by that time a partner, would join me in interviewing second year law students at Harvard and Yale and other law schools in the fierce competition to find and hire the best and the brightest. There had been such a nationwide attitudinal shift by then that 22 year-old law students were asking interviewers what their law firm was doing to bring about societal change in America. Not much later we went our own ways. We both remained Philadelphia lawyers, but Ragan increasingly turned his attention and talents to acquiring radio stations.

The decade of the sixties is often recalled for its tragic events. But for many it is remembered as the decade when the impossible became possible.

We are also pleased to report that we learned that Sen. Williams will be co-sponsoring a companion bill in the Senate to restore legal protections against ethnic intimidation.

Kudos to JSPAN for its leadership role in helping to secure equality for all of Pennsylvania's citizens!

As I approach retirement from the JCRC after 35 years, I sometimes look back and wonder how my life might have been different if I had gone to law school, as my late father, who did go but never finished, wanted me to do, or if I hadn't bought a copy of the New York Review of Books, where I saw what became my first job in Jewish community relations listed, or if I hadn't run into Al Chernin, the executive director of JCRC in the summer of 1973, who just about offered me a job while we were standing on the street schmoozing. I imagine all our lives are somewhat like the plot of a truly charming 1998 film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, in which we see what her life would have been like if she hadn't missed a train.

But if I had become a trial lawyer, or if I didn't see the ad for the job with the American Jewish Committee or if I had walked up another street and not seen Al that hot morning, I would have been denied what has been one hell of an opportunity to get paid to do that which I probably would have volunteered to do anyway. And even though JCRC may not be what it once was, I still get to work with so many people who share a vision of what the world can be like, or at least a small part of it, if we try hard enough. Not only have I been so very fortunate in the types of volunteers I work with that have remained active with the JCRC after Federation brought us "in house", but I have had the opportunity to be a volunteer myself through JSPAN.

Someone once said that if the JCRC didn't already exist, we would have to invent it because the Jewish community needed it so much. The same holds true for JSPAN. There are times I fear that too many in our community decline to fight for those issues that truly matter to us as Jews and as Americans. We have become either smug and complacent or so focused on more narrow concerns that we absent ourselves from the broader world around us. Alas, we often need a goad to both our conscience and our consciousness.

We need organizations like JCRC and JSPAN to serve as a reminder and a motivator that there are powerful forces out there who care nothing about social justice, equal rights, or a decent life for the less fortunate. These forces see health care as simply another commodity to be sold for a profit and not a right for everyone. They support policies that compound the needs of the needy while putting more in the already overstuffed pockets of the greedy wealthy. They see poor schools all around them, inadequate housing, diminishing human services and the despoliation of our very environment - and do nothing.

I feel fortunate indeed to know so many people who take the opposite steps. Men and women who know that while we will not repair the world in our lifetimes, we owe our children and grandchildren a better world than the one we came into.

Police investigations, commissions of inquiry examining the errors committed during the Lebanon war of 2006, repugnance at former president Moshe Katsav's alleged sex crimes, and now prime minister Ehud Olmert's announcement that, with charges of corruption swirling about him, he will resign in September: all of this suggests profound wounds in Israel's moral tissue.

Old Israelis like myself are stupefied by the scope and scale of today's corruption and the multiplying investigations. Is corruption something that has always existed here but was somehow hidden until now? Are we learning of it because our prosecutor and police are bolder and better equipped nowadays?

I do not believe that corruption is coming to light just because law enforcement is somehow better, or because citizens, like the presidential staff who accused President Katsav of sexual crimes and harassment, are more courageous. What is coming to light is a much deeper evil, a loss of values within Israeli society and its government, such as never existed before.

JSPAN welcomes comments and reactions to this provocative opinion piece. To add your voice, click here.

Geneva Initiative surveys asked the same question repeatedly over the past three years. The tracking polling data shows that with time, Israelis are increasingly growing more supportive of U.S. involvement. The support level of 73% in July was up from 64% in July 2007, 54% in May of 2006 and 47% in August of 2005. The poll also shows that Israelis increasingly support stepped-up European involvement in the peace process: 58% now, compared to 48% in July 2007.

Support for increased U.S. involvement in the peace process was particularly high among Labor voters (96%) and Kadima voters (91%). It was also surprisingly high among Likud voters: 75% of those who said they intend to vote for Likud in the next elections expressed their support for a stronger U.S. role in the peace process. (www.geneva-accord.org, 8/13/08)

On August 14, 2008, The Times reported that a new study from the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has concluded that placing juveniles in an adult criminal court for trial and sentencing, a practice routinely used in the court system that was begun in the mid-1990s to deter crime, "has increased recidivism, especially in violent offenders, and has led many young people to a permanent life of crime." The Times editorial puts the responsibility for these "counterproductive policies" in the hands of the legal system across the nation that "encourage(s) prosecutors to try minors as adults."

At the same time, according to a new study by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency which was reported in a Times editorial on August 19, "the number of minors being held in adult facilities has decreased by 38 percent since 1999. Because of reductions in juvenile crime and arrests, among other factors, the number of children held in juvenile facilities also fell."

Although this data is certainly "encouraging, states still seem to be holding in juvenile facilities a great many children who should instead be treated in therapeutic programs near their homes and families. ..... Too many children are still being confined for minor offenses like truancy, which should be dealt with through community-based programs. ..... Another cause for concern is the significant racial and ethnic disparities that show up in juvenile justice data."

In conclusion, The Times editorial urges the states and the federal government to "pay more attention to these disparities so all young people can benefit from advances in how juvenile offenders are handled by the criminal justice system."

• To read "The Case for Juvenile Courts" in its entirety, click here.
• To read "Some Progress on Kids and Jails" in its entirety, click here.

 

Comer taught in the Abington School District for 25 years and was the chairperson of the district's Holocaust Curriculum Committee. The documentary describes the development, over 20 years, of the Abington School District's award-winning Holocaust curriculum project and its effect on both teaching personnel and students. Included are gripping testimonies of three Holocaust survivors and discussions with them. The interaction between survivors and students as well as classroom lessons can be seen on the DVD.

JSPAN congratulates Deanne Comer for this singular honor!

For additional information on The Voices of Holocaust History, go to www.voicesofholocausthistory.com.

Governor Rendell has committed to making health care reform a priority in the fall session. The issue is to make sure that Senators are willing to support expanding coverage and regulating insurers on the issue of pre-existing conditions. Contact your Senators now to demand a vote in the Senate on health care reform this fall. To find their contact information enter your ZIP code at http://www.pasen.gov/index.cfm. Let them know that you will remember on election day if nothing is done to improve health care in PA this fall.

It is particularly important to reach moderate Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs and elsewhere who may feel vulnerable on this issue and may be willing to press Republican leadership to call for a vote on this critical issue. The PA Health Access Network is scheduling a series of actions in August and September to push suburban legislators to support health care reform, including running radio ads, phone banks, candidate forums and rallies. Click here to view a flyer PHAN is using in the suburbs. We will keep you informed on upcoming actions.

Please remember that JSPAN welcomes your donations to help us continue our important and effective work in Tikkun Olam. You may send gifts via PayPal on www.jspan.org. or to JSPAN, 1735 Market Street, Suite #A417, Philadelphia, PA 19103