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Groff v. DeJoy is the rare Supreme Court decision that every Jew can celebrate
(JTA) — In one of its most anticipated cases of the year, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Groff v. DeJoy last month, significantly expanding the federal protections afforded religious employees in the workplace. The decision itself was unanimous, reflecting a broad consensus that employers should be doing more than previously required when it comes to accommodating religious employees.
Jewish organizations from across the ideological spectrum — from Agudath Israel and the Orthodox Union to the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism — applauded the ruling as providing long-elusive workplace protections. This new ruling will no longer allow employers to avoid providing accommodations simply because it comes at some minimal cost. Employers will now have to prove such costs are substantial when considered in the broader context of their business.
When Gerald Groff took his job at the U.S. Postal Service, he was not required to work on Sundays. However, after the Postal Service subsequently entered an agreement to deliver packages for Amazon on Sundays, Groff was informed that he could no longer take off on his Sunday Sabbath, as was his custom, which ultimately led to his termination.
The crux of the case revolved around two words in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: “undue hardship.” According to the text of Title VII, employers are required to accommodate the religious practices of their employees, but only if providing such an accommodation does not present an “undue hardship” to their business. In this way, federal law balances the religious needs of the employee against the business necessities of the employer. And the words “undue hardship,” at least on their face, imply that the employers are expected to endure some hardship in order to accommodate religious employees, but that obligation ends once the hardship to the employer’s business becomes “undue.”
While the text of the law appears to impose modest, but important obligations on employers, the Supreme Court — back in a 1977 case, TWA v. Hardison — provided a contorted interpretation of Title VII that required far less of employers. Somewhat counterintuitively, the Court appeared to hold that providing a religious accommodation imposed an “undue hardship” on the employer any time it required the employer to “bear more than a de minimis cost” — that is, a trivial or minor cost. As a result, if an employer could demonstrate a religious accommodation entailed even a trivial cost, she was off the hook. The court’s decision in Hardison rejected an employee’s claim to have his Sabbath accommodated.
Hardison’s stingy standard, and its significant consequences for American Jews in the workplace, is precisely why so many Jewish organizations with varying political outlooks – including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs, National Council of Young Israel, Orthodox Union (full disclosure: I co-authored the Orthodox Union’s amicus brief), and the Zionist Organization of America — all filed amicus briefs before the Court in Groff. As these briefs emphasized, the lack of meaningful protections for religious employees had, over the years, repeatedly forced American Jews to choose between their faith and their livelihood, most notably when it came to observing the Sabbath and Jewish holidays.
But in Groff, the Supreme Court overhauled the standard for employers: According to the decision, an employer must accommodate a religious employee unless doing so imposes “a burden [that] is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business.” (Emphasis added.)
So what does this all mean for the future of religious accommodation in the workplace?
As the solicitor general noted during oral arguments, there are three broad categories where employees typically seek religious accommodations: scheduling changes such as those required to facilitate Sabbath observance; dress and grooming policies such as kippahs and hijabs in the workplace; and religious expression in the workplace, which might include an employee’s desire to display (or avoid) some sort of religious symbol or message.
Under the new standard, employers who seek to reject such requests will have to demonstrate that granting these religious accommodations would impose substantial costs. Considerations like administrative costs and modest financial expenditures will be insufficient justification for denying such requests. This impact will likely be felt most directly when it comes to requests to accommodate Sabbath observances. The Court’s opinion indicates that employers will have to consider voluntary shift swaps and modest incentives — such as overtime payments — in order to accommodate a Sabbath-observing employee.
Importantly, this will vary significantly by occupation. For example, while a postal worker might reasonably request time off for the Sunday Sabbath, a coach in the NFL, where games are mostly played on Sundays, cannot.
Similarly, determining whether the financial burdens of accommodation are truly significant will also depend on context. Costs that might be significant for a local grocery store may not be significant for a corporate behemoth like Amazon. Those differences will matter when deciding how much an employer will have to expend when accommodating a particular religious practice.
Finally, the court emphasized that accommodations that trigger deep dissatisfaction from employees — and thereby significantly affect the employer’s business — can qualify as a substantial cost and justify an employer’s decision to deny an accommodation. But the court was careful to constrain these sorts of considerations: An employer cannot claim that she can’t accommodate a religious employee because other employees have expressed dissatisfaction that is based upon their “animosity to a particular religion, to religion in general, or to the very notion of accommodating religious practice.” To countenance such bias or hostility would undermine the very purposes of the law — and, in the words of the court, put Title VII “at war with itself.”
To be sure, the significance of Groff is somewhat blunted given that many states have already adopted heightened standards for when religious employees must be accommodated. Before Groff, many employees could still leverage state law protections to secure accommodations. An amicus brief filed by 22 states noted that states with broader protections had not faced significant challenges in administering such legal regimes.
Still, the court’s decision will likely provide long overdue protections to religious employees — fulfilling the long-overdue promise of Title VII. Most notably, the decision likely ensures that religious minorities — whose observances are often out of step with the rhythm of the modern workplace — need not cast aside their religious commitments as the price of employment.
This new standard is mindful of context and careful not to require substantial costs that might undermine a business. At the same time, the court’s decision is clear that employers cannot hide behind minor inconveniences to ignore the requests of their religious employees.
In sum, the court’s decision in Groff — and unanimously so — asks employers and employees to find workable solutions to conflicts between business objectives and faith commitments. In that way, it may provide a useful blueprint for navigating a host of recurring social conflicts across the human condition.
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The post Groff v. DeJoy is the rare Supreme Court decision that every Jew can celebrate appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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