A rabbi is not a clergyman within the terms of the ordinance exempting a clergyman’s house from taxation the Upper Court ruled today. The case arose when a Jewish community center asked the court to rule on the release from taxation of the community center which is also used as a house by a rabbi.
The Court’s decision was that the ordinance privileging clergymen from taxation referred only to Christian church societies. In a sort of obiter dictum the Court pointed out that its decision was not to be considered as going contrary to the Reich’s constitution because the tax privilege does not refer to old churches and certain other religious societies.
Commenting on the Court’s decision, the “Frankfurter Zeitung” says that “the Constitution proclaimed equality for all religious societies and it is therefore incomprehensible why the clergy of one religion are granted privileges not accorded to those of another. The Court overlooked the fact that the Constitution now considers Jewish community centers and Israelitish religious societies as bodies of public right and it also overlooked the fact that the term clergymen referred to clergy of all public religious communities. If on one hand a clergyman is considered as a public or recognized religious head then it is inconsistent to exclude rabbis from the same category.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
