NEW YORK – State and county health officials filed a lawsuit Friday against an Orange County school that they said remained open despite a closure order due to an increase in coronavirus cases.
According to him Times Herald-Record, the lawsuit filed in the Goshen Supreme Court sues the Bnei Yoel school in Kiryas Joel. Earlier this month, Orange County health officials ordered schools in the Orthodox Jewish community to be closed for two weeks.
In the lawsuit, a county deputy health commissioner said he visited the school two days ago and saw children without face masks and without observing social distancing.
A phone message was left with the village administrator on Saturday.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reinstated restrictions this month on businesses, places of worship and schools in and near areas where coronavirus cases are increasing.
The new rules, which include school and business closures and meeting limitations, affect parts of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, sections of Orange and Rockland counties outside of the city, and an area within Binghamton in the South level.
Some Jewish leaders have called the measures “blatantly anti-Semitic” for attacking Orthodox communities. On Friday, in a case brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, a federal judge upheld Cuomo’s order limiting worship to just 10 worshipers in communities experiencing spikes in coronavirus infections.
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