#Jewish sleepaway camp owners sue Gov. Cuomo over coronavirus ban

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Brooklyn Jewish kids rally for camps.
Paul Martinka

A group of Jewish camp owners are suing Gov. Andrew Cuomo after the state announced it was banning sleepaway camps this summer amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Association of Jewish Camp Operators is asking a judge to block the closures because it claims the ban violates their constitutional right to freedom of religion and parents’ right to choose the “religious education and upbringing of their children,” according to the suit filed in an upstate New York federal court Thursday.

“The need for Jewish overnight camps is particularly true this summer, after several months of shutdowns of the yeshiva schools, to provide for the structured Jewish learning and living offered by the Jewish overnight camps,” the court papers say.

While the overnight camps have been banned, the state has allowed and has even encouraged the protests that have erupted in light of the Minnesota cop-brutality death of George Floyd, the court documents allege.

The camp owners say they aren’t criticizing the state’s stance on protests but rather they are requesting “the same treatment for Jewish overnight camps, which the First Amendment protects as vigorously as it protects the mass protests.”

The camps have health and safety protocols ready to go that would make the the facilities, “considerably safer than the exempted mass protests as they relate to the transmission of COVID-19,” the court filings claim.

In fact, the suit says, the owners have a plan that would be “similar to, but even more protective than, those issued by the Department of Health governing comparable secular conduct, such as day camps and child care service,” the suit says.

The governor’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.