T hree Houston churches are suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for its refusal at press time to provide them funding for disaster relief claiming it would violate the First Amendment’s separation of religion and state. We spoke with Nathan Diament the director of the Institute for Public Affairs of the OU the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America who has successfully fought similar rulings in the past and is lobbying to reverse the current FEMA policy

Is the FEMA ruling affecting any Jewish organizations right now?

It’s potentially affecting the shuls in Houston that were flooded. It’s potentially going to affect shuls in Florida that may have been flooded by the current storm although it sounds as if the large Jewish communities in Boca Raton and Miami may have been spared. But it’s still early to say yes it’s affecting them or no it’s not because it’s only been two weeks since the Houston storm. It’s still early for applications of federal disaster money.

But aren’t they facing a 30-day deadline?

An initial application has to be submitted within 30 days of the president’s disaster declaration [of August 25 — ed]. It’s not like you put in the application and get a check in the mail the next day. That’s just the start of a process. But ideally they need to know within the next week to ten days if they are going to be eligible.

What are you doing to push things forward?

This is an issue that we at the OU have worked on for many years after many natural disasters. In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane in Houston we began talking to key people at FEMA the White House and Capitol Hill. We’ve had very encouraging conversations with key staff people at FEMA and with Trump administration officials who are working toward changing the policy. On Friday night after Shabbos started the president tweeted that churches should get assistance similar to others. That’s an excellent sign and we’re optimistic the administration will change the policy in very short order. We’re also working with partners in Congress. Even though the president doesn’t need legislation to change this policy we want to get the statute amended so that this is not going to be a problem in the future.

FEMA contends that if they change the policy they will face lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil society groups. Could that tie up aid?

Even though it’s been our view for many years that there are no constitutional issues here in terms of the separation of church and state that is clearer now after the ruling the Supreme Court issued in June in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer. The court basically said in that case that if you have a government grant program that’s awarded based on neutral criteria — meaning not based on religion — and the program is related to safety and security you cannot deny churches and other houses of worship grants under those programs only because of their statuses as houses of worship. That ruling is about as close to the case involving FEMA now that you can get. (Excerpted from Mishpacha Issue 677)