Court Orders Jewish Storekeeper to Close Business on High Holydays

The least a citizen of the Jewish faith can do for the observance of the holidays of the Jewish calendar is to deep his business closed on the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement.

This opinion, having a binding effect, was pronounced in a Vienna court at the close of a suit extending over two years, between a Jewish landlord and his tenant, a Jewish woman who rented a store from him.

Rabinowith, an Orthodox Jew, in renting a store to Yetta Epstein before the outbreak of the World War, specified in the agreement that the tenant must keep her shop closed on Jewish holidays and on the Sabbath. Mrs. Epstein lived up to the agreement (Continued on Page 4)

until several years ago. When the pressure of competition and other difficulties made her decide to keep her store open on Saturday, Rabinowitch could not see the laxity in observance by one of his tenants, particularly when he had a legal document which could compel her to observe the tenets of their faith.

He brought suit, but Mrs. Epstein, through counsel, succeeded on various technicalities, in postponing the hearings which she feared might lead to her eviction from the building, which would be tantamount to ruin. The day of judgment came yesterday. The judge in disposing finally of the case ordered Mrs. Epstein to keep her store closed on the two days of Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur. In the matter of the Sabbath, the judge stated it would be too great a hardship to impose upon the lessee, since, being compelled by the Sunday observance law to keep her shop closed on Sunday, she suffered greatly from loss of business two days out of the week.