The Mercantile Affairs Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature had before it today an urgent plea from the Massachusetts Council of Rabbis and the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of Greater Boston for a Sabbatarian exemption to the state’s blue laws.
Rabbi Samuel J. Fox, speaking for the two organizations, urged the Committee to take action “to end the outright discrimination against Sabbatarians, including the Seventh Day Adventists of the Christian Church and Orthodox Jews.”
He told the Committee that “pressure groups” were using the Legislature as a tool to discriminate against such Sabbath observers and that more than 40 categories of business were given exemptions from the blue laws last year but that no measure of relief of any kind had been given to such Sabbatarians.
The rabbi said he had been advised that there was no chance of getting such an amendment to the blue laws through the current session of the Legislature. However, Rep. Julius Ansel, a committee member, said the committee would give serious consideration to Rabbi Fox’s plea.
A number of Massachusetts representatives and Senators provided supporting statements to Rabbi Fox’s appeal, as did the Jewish Community Council of Greater Boston, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and Americans for Democratic Action.
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