Holding Saturday elections for the board members of the city’s 26 anti-poverty agencies would be “blatantly discriminatory” to Jews in the areas of those community corporations, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith charged today. The League asked the City Council to take “speedy, affirmative action” to ban Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday local elections for nonpublic offices in which the general public participates.
Referring to its recent request to Mayor John V. Lindsay to rescind a decision by the city’s Council Against Poverty (CAP) to hold the elections on either a Tuesday or a Saturday in April, the ADL protested that “past experience has shown that when there is an option, Saturday is usually the day chosen.”
Earlier last week Lindsay announced his opposition to Saturday elections because, a spokesman said, he “considers it a clear and unacceptable infringement upon freedom of religion to hold public or quasi-public elections on the Sabbath.” The Mayor’s office also said the administration would not defend CAP against a suit by Rabbi Sholom B. Gorodetsky of Brooklyn, a CAP delegate who opposes Saturday elections.
The ADL proposed to the City Council an amendment asserting that “the holding of elections on days of worship in unfair to those citizens who observe such days of worship in that they are unable to participate fully in the election process on an equal basis unless they violate their religious precepts.” This, it continues, “poses a threat to the free exercise of religion and equality of access to the electoral process.” On the other hand, “bigotry, prejudice and intolerance will be discouraged if such elections are forbidden on those days of worship,” and “holding elections on other days will permit the participation of a greater number of people.”
The proposed amendment would provide for a fine of up to $100 or imprisonment up to 10 days or a combination of both on conviction of violation, Milton A. Seymour, chairman of the ADL’s New York Board, said the measure was drafted following requests from the League and “other concerned groups.”
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