The constitutionality of the variety of state Sunday closing laws in the United States, under which Jewish merchants have been repeatedly penalized, will be reviewed by the United States Supreme Court.
The court yesterday ordered oral arguments in blue law cases from Massachusetts, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The cases will be heard and decided at the next term of the Supreme Court which begins next October.
Jews are directly involved in the Massachusetts case in which the Crown Kosher Supermarket of Springfield, Mass., used to bar enforcement. The suit contended the Massachusetts Lord’s Day Act, which stems from a 1653 Colonial law and which has been am ended more than 70 times, discriminated against owners of the supermarket who were required by their faith as Orthodox Jews to remain closed on Saturdays.
Chief Judge Calvert Magruder of the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Lord’s Day act discriminated against the Crown Kosher Supermarket by favoring one religion over another and that the exemptions were so numerous as to be irrational. He ruled that the law was unconstitutional.
A three-Judge district court in Philadelphia last December denied an injunction against Pennsylvania’s blue law sought by a highway discount house. One phase of the struggle is between such firms, which do a heavy business on Sunday, and urban department stores, which are closed on Sunday.
The dispute also has overtones of Christian-Jewish differences, since the laws have been strongly supported by various church groups. The Massachusetts law was endorsed by the Lord’s Day League of New England and the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Men.
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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.
