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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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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.