Court of Appeals Upholds Right of Jews to Build Sands Point Synagogue

The right of a Jewish congregation of Sands Point, Long Island, to use a $215,000 estate it had purchased for a synagogue was upheld here yesterday by the Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court.

The court, in a 6 to 1 decision, ruled that the village of Sands Point, a suburb of New York, might not construe municipal regulations in such a way as to interfere with Constitutional guarantees of the “free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship.” It further ruled that the congregation’s plan to use some of the rooms of the building for meeting and social purposes was not inconsistent with the functions of a religious community.

The zoning regulations of Sands Point were amended after the Community Synagogue, a Reform congregation, purchased the estate, known as The Chimneys. After losing several actions before the village authorities, the congregation took the matter to the courts where the village was upheld until yesterday.

At Sands Point today, Charles Shapiro, president of the Community Synagogue, hailed the court’s decision and stressed that the Jewish congregation had fought “not only for our own case, but also for all religious denominations.” The court also ruled yesterday that a Catholic Church which had been denied the right to build in a Rochester suburb was also entitled to a municipal permit.

The decisions of the Court of Appeals to permit the construction of the synagogue in Sands Point and the Roman Catholic church and school near Rochester, were welcomed today by the American Jewish Congress as “a notable victory for the fundamental constitutional principles upon which American democracy rests.”