Land wars

Religion: The Supreme Court may need to decide whether a federal law designed to protect religious freedom will do so | Alisa Harris

MAMARONECK, N.Y.— When Debbie Briks teaches her first-grade class at Westchester Day School about healthy eating, she also teaches them the Jewish prayers for every food group. When she tells the Thanksgiving story, she relates it to the Jewish value of sharing. She reminds unruly kids of mitzvot, the Jewish rules for good behavior. When she found a mistake in a math book, she quizzed her class on the infallibility of the Torah, asking, "What is the only book that was written without a mistake?"

The "integration of faith and learning" emphasized at some Christian schools is on display at this Orthodox Jewish school set on 26 wooded acres northeast of New York City. But beach and tennis clubs border the school, and Mamaroneck's zoning board has refused to let the school construct a new classroom building. On Oct. 17 the 2nd United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the zoning board's refusal displayed "an arbitrary blindness to the facts"—and that ruling may clear a path for not only Jewish schools but Christian ones as well to stand up against political attempts to stifle their growth or close them down entirely.