⁍ Catholics and Jews ask U.S. courts to overturn New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s order limiting worship to no more than 10 congregants in communities hard hit by the coronavirus.

---

⁍ U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis said he hoped to rule by Friday on a request by Brooklyn’s Roman Catholic diocese for a preliminary injunction voiding the restrictions.

---

– Catholics and Jews are fighting back against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s restrictions on the number of people who can attend religious services in areas hard-hit by the coronavirus. At a hearing in Manhattan yesterday, a federal judge said he would rule by tomorrow on a request by Brooklyn’s Roman Catholic diocese for a preliminary injunction voiding the restrictions, Reuters reports. In a 33-page complaint, laced with historical references to persecution, three Orthodox Jewish congregations said Cuomo had outlawed ‘all but the most minimal communal religious worship.’ “For Jews, communal worship is an essential service for which untold thousands have risked and sacrificed their lives,’ the congregations, Ohalei Shem D’Nitra, Yesheos Yakov, and Netzach Yisroel, wrote. In the Catholic case, Bishop Raymond Chappetto testified the diocese had imposed social-distancing and other safety measures beyond state requirements, including placing communion wafers in congregants’ hands rather than on their tongues. Chappetto, who said he knew of no COVID-19 outbreaks in his 26 parishes affected by Cuomo’s order, said weekly Mass was obligatory for Catholics and it was ‘absolutely essential’ that they be there in person. Lawyers for the diocese argued there was no rational basis for the order. They said the infection outbreaks were occurring in Jewish ultra-Orthodox communities, not among Brooklyn Catholics.