The US Supreme Court's Jewish issues in 2021

• Published date: 08 October 2021
• Author: RON KAMPEAS/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

But there is one issue that a range of Jewish groups are keenly interested in that is not on the docket: the Court's credibility.

A series of bruising confirmation battles in recent years and a pair of recent decisions — on Texas' controversial abortion law and on President Biden's proposed moratoriums on evictions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic — have polarized public opinion about the Court. In the wake of last year's rush by Republicans to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed as the Court's sixth conservative justice, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there have been calls from left-leaning groups to reconstitute the Court by adding more justices.

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Sensing the growing criticism, several justices — liberal and conservative — have spoken out in recent weeks. Barrett emphasized that justices should not let personal biases influence their decisions. Samuel Alito dismissed claims that the Court's conservatives have formed a "shadow docket" to push decisions through without traditional debate sessions.

That has not appeased many Jewish organizations, who worry about how the erosion of the Court's reputation could eventually harm Jews.

"There will be a time when the court's prestige is necessary to protect individual or group rights or the institutional interests of the country, and the prestige shouldn't be squandered," said Marc Stern, general counsel for the centrist American Jewish Committee.

He cited as an example Cooper v. Aaron in 1958, when the school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, fearing anti-Black riots, sought to delay the desegregation ordered by the court several years earlier. The court unanimously rejected the school board's bid.

Stern noted that at the time, desegregation was unpopular in the south, and President Dwight Eisenhower equivocated about federal intervention.

"What carried the decision was the prestige of the court," he said.

Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement's more progressive Religious Action Center, said recent court decisions have set it on a path toward radical changes, among them severely curtailing the right to an abortion.

"We are worried about the hyper-polarization of the Court and the potential that it is being delegitimized when it is so out of sync with thoughtful consensus issues, like access to abortion," Pesner said.

Under that cloud, the Court's justices will hear a range of impactful cases this fall. Here are the ones that Jews should...