Suffern, NY – A U.S. magistrate judge has recommended that the village pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to a nonprofit agency and several others who sued the village, claiming their religious rights had been violated.
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According to court documents filed Friday, Magistrate Judge George A. Yanthis recommended that Suffern pay $286,387.26 to Bikur Cholim Inc. and seven other plaintiffs who had first brought a lawsuit against the village in 2006.
Bikur Cholim has operated the Shabbos house in Suffern for more than 20 years. The house provides free kosher meals and lodging to observant Jews visiting patients at Good Samaritan Hospital on the Sabbath and on 13 Jewish holy days, when Jews are required to refrain from activities such as using electricity, driving and exchanging money.
In 2005, the Shabbos house, which had operated from inside Good Samaritan, was moved to a home on Hillcrest Road.
Following the move, village officials accused the operators of the Shabbos house of violating zoning regulations — the facility provided lodging for up to 14 people at a time, but was in a zone reserved for single-family housing.
Bikur Cholim took the village to federal court, claiming its rights guaranteed under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 were violated when the village failed to grant the organization a variance. A civil rights suit filed against the village by the federal government soon followed.
Read more in The Journal News
these jew hating villages need to wake up and smell the coffee – your hatred cost us the tax payer money when you fight things we want