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5 rabbis sue state of Missouri over abortion bans on religious freedom grounds
(JTA) — Five rabbis from multiple Jewish denominations are among more than a dozen Missouri faith leaders challenging the state’s ban on abortion.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in St. Louis Circuit Court, the faith leaders charge that lawmakers acted according to their personal religious beliefs and violated the separation of church and state protected in Missouri’s constitution.
“I was really proud to have the opportunity to join in this lawsuit because I’ve seen the ways in which religious views are being enshrined into laws in Missouri and across the country,” Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis and a prominent activist in the St. Louis area, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“That’s fundamentally dangerous, I think, for our democracy, for all citizens, but especially for our Jewish community,” she added.
Jewish activists have been particularly active in contesting abortion restrictions imposed since the Supreme Court’s rollback of Roe v. Wade last year.
In Florida, a synagogue sued the state over its abortion law in June, arguing that the 15-week ban on abortion “prohibits Jewish women from practicing their faith free of government intrusion and this violates their privacy rights and religious freedom.” In September, three Jewish women were part of a lawsuit filed in Indiana claiming that the state’s ban on abortion violates the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
And in October, three Jewish women filed a lawsuit to block Kentucky’s abortion restrictions on religious freedom grounds, arguing that the law violates their ability to practice Jewish understandings of when life begins and impedes the possibility of in-vitro fertilization, which is also permissible by Jewish law.
In Missouri, the faith leaders partnered with the National Women’s Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State in drafting their lawsuit. They are seeking to overturn a blanket ban on abortions except in the case of a medical emergency. The law, which was written in 2019 but went into effect after the Supreme Court ruling because of a “trigger” provision, makes performing abortions a felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison and says providers can lose their medical licenses.
“What the lawsuit says is that when you legislate your religious beliefs into law, you impose your beliefs on everyone else and force all of us to live by your own narrow beliefs,” said Michelle Banker, the director of reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center and the lead attorney in the case. “And that hurts us. That denies our basic human rights.”
The lawsuit cites multiple specific instances of religious language used by the bill’s sponsors and supporters. The bill’s lead sponsor, for example, is quoted in the lawsuit as having said, “As a Catholic I do believe life begins at conception and that is built into our legislative findings.”
Jewish tradition does not include the same belief, which is one reason that Jewish activists have been heavily involved in resisting abortion restrictions. Picker Neiss, who trained in an Orthodox setting, is joined by three Reform rabbis and one nondenominational rabbi who work in Missouri synagogues: James Bennett, Susan Talve, Andrea Goldstein and Douglas Alpert. Together, they make up 40% of the religious leaders to sign onto the lawsuit.
After filing their suit Thursday morning in St. Louis, the Missouri plaintiffs held a press conference and then marched to the Civil Courts building.
“It was really empowering to stand alongside so many people of such a diverse range of faith traditions, who all wanted to come together to say that religion doesn’t have any one answer to questions about abortion,” Picker Neiss said. “There is no one religious view in America. And so I just felt so heartened and inspired to stand arm in arm with religious leaders from across the spectrum.”
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The post 5 rabbis sue state of Missouri over abortion bans on religious freedom grounds appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Officials Tell i24NEWS Israeli Concerns About Gaza Board of Peace Are ‘Unfounded’
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
i24 News – Amid the criticism in Israel over the composition of the “Board of Peace” and the bodies set to govern the Gaza Strip, as well as concerns that Hamas could continue to threaten Israel under the new plan, officials in Washington suggest these concerns are unfounded, i24NEWS understands.
A Senior US official tells i24NEWS: “Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt were instrumental in achieving the ceasefire, securing the return of the living hostages, and bringing back the deceased. They have co-signed commitments that Hamas will follow through on its part of the plan, and the Board of Peace will work with them to ensure compliance.”
The underlying message is clear: President Trump will make the calls, and the US will ensure full implementation of all objectives of the plan, first and foremost the demilitarization of Gaza, regardless of the positions or hostile statements towards Israel coming from Turkey and Qatar.
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One Person Killed, 14 Hurt in Blast in Iranian Port of Bandar Abbas, Iranian Media Reports
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Iranian shores and Port of Bandar Abbas in the strait of Hormuz, December 10, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, a local official told Iranian news agencies, but the cause of the blast was not known.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the explosion were “completely false.”
Iranian media said the blast was under investigation but provided no further information. Iranian authorities could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Separately, four people were killed after a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts, which come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear program.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US President Donald Trump said on January 22 an “armada” was heading toward Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump was weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US, Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic problems, inciting unrest and providing people with the means to “tear the nation apart.”
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman which handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured over 1,000 people. An investigative committee at the time blamed the blast on shortcomings in adherence to principles of civil defense and security.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests that erupted in December over economic hardship and have posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.
At least 5,000 people were killed in the protests, including 500 members of the security forces, an Iranian official told Reuters.
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How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists
After a pro-Palestinian protest at a New Jersey synagogue turned violent in October, the Trump administration took an unusual step — using a federal law typically aimed at protecting abortion clinics to sue the demonstrators.
Now, federal authorities are attempting to deploy the same law against journalists as well as protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the agency’s at times violent crackdown in Minneapolis.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, a local journalist, and two protesters were arrested after attending a Jan. 18 anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, Justice Department officials said Friday. Protesters alleged the pastor at Cities Church worked for ICE.
The federal law they are accused of violating, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, prohibits the use of force or intimidation to interfere with reproductive health care clinics and houses of worship.
But in the three decades since its passage in 1994, the law had almost entirely been deployed against anti-abortion protesters causing disruptions at clinics.
That changed in September of last year, when the Trump administration cited the FACE Act to sue pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey.
It was the first time the Department of Justice had used the law against demonstrators outside a house of worship, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at the time.
The novel legal strategy — initially advanced by Jewish advocacy groups to fight antisemitism — is now front and center in what First Amendment advocates are describing as an attack on freedom of the press.
“I intend to identify and find every single person in that mob that interrupted that church service in that house of God and bring them to justice,” Dhillon told Newsmax last week. “And that includes so-called ‘journalists.’”
How the law has been used
The FACE Act has traditionally been used to prosecute protesters who interfere with patients entering abortion clinics. Conservative activists have long criticized the law as violating demonstrators’ First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration even issued a memo earlier this month saying the Justice Department should limit enforcement of the law.
But in September, the Trump administration applied the FACE Act in a new way: suing the New Jersey protesters at Congregation Ohr Torah.
They had disrupted an event at the Orthodox shul that promoted real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank, blowing plastic horns in people’s ears and chanting “globalize the intifada,” a complaint alleges.
Two pro-Israel demonstrators were charged by local law enforcement with aggravated assault, including a local dentist, Moshe Glick, who police said bashed a protester in the head with a metal flashlight, sending him to the hospital. Glick said he had acted in self defense, protecting a fellow congregant who had been tackled by a protester.
The event soon became a national flashpoint, with Glick’s lawyer alleging the prosecution had been “an attempt to criminalize Jewish self-defense.” Former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy pardoned Glick earlier this month.
The Trump administration sued the pro-Palestinian protesters under the FACE Act, seeking to ban them from protesting outside houses of worship and asking that they each pay thousands of dollars in fines.
At the time, Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS he applauded the Trump administration “for bringing this suit to protect the Jewish community and all people of faith, who have the constitutional right to worship without fear of harassment.”
Diament did not respond to the Forward’s email asking whether he supported the use of the FACE Act against the Minneapolis journalists and protesters.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a pro-Israel group that says it uses legal tools to counter antisemitism, did not express concern over the use of the FACE Act in the Minnesota arrests — and emphasized the necessity of protecting religious spaces from interference.
“The idea that ‘you can worship’ means nothing if a mob can make it unsafe or impossible,” Goldfeder wrote in a statement to the Forward. “So if you apply it consistently: to protect a church in Minnesota, a synagogue in New Jersey, a mosque in Detroit, what you are actually protecting is pluralism itself.”
Goldfeder has also attempted to use the FACE Act against protesters at a synagogue, citing the law in a July 2024 complaint against demonstrators who had converged on an event promoting Israel real estate at Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. That clash descended into violence.
The Trump administration Justice Department subsequently filed a statement of interest supporting that case, arguing that what constituted “physical obstruction” at a house of worship under the FACE Act could be interpreted broadly.
Now, similar legal reasoning may apply to journalists covering the Sunday church protest in Minneapolis. Press freedom groups have expressed deep alarm over the arrests, arguing that the journalists were there to document, not disrupt.
The arrests are “the latest example of the administration coming up with far-fetched ‘gotcha’ legal theories to send a message to journalists to tread cautiously,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Because the government is looking for any way to target them.”
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