JTA — A rabbi, a Jewish mother who invokes her family’s Holocaust history, and a Jewish teenager are among seven Oklahoma residents who have asked a federal court to let them join the fight against a proposed Jewish public charter school in their state.

The group filed a motion Wednesday in federal court in Oklahoma City seeking to intervene in the lawsuit brought by the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, which is trying to become the nation’s first publicly funded religious school.

Rabbi Daniel Kaiman, the principal rabbi of Congregation B’nai Emunah in Tulsa, says he opposes the mixing of religion and government because of the potential for abuse. His own children attend a public elementary school in Tulsa.

“I am passionate about Jewish education — indeed, I have dedicated my life to it. Kaiman wrote in a declaration filed with the court. “Children in my congregation, including my own children, receive excellent, privately funded Jewish education through our synagogue and at home in accordance with our community values. But the mixing of religion and government creates opportunities for religious coercion.”

The motion was filed on behalf of the seven by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Education Law Center, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Oklahoma Appleseed.

Ben Gamla, founded by former Florida congressman Peter Deutsch, applied last year to open a virtual K-12 school in Oklahoma where Jewish religious teachings would be woven into all subjects and employees would be required to uphold Jewish tradition in their personal lives.

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board rejected the application twice, in February and March, citing a 2024 Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that barred religious charter schools. The 2024 ruling stood following a 4-4 vote in the US Supreme Court after Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, reportedly over ties to the Catholic plaintiff in that case.

Ben Gamla filed a federal lawsuit against the board on March 24, arguing that the ban amounts to unconstitutional religious discrimination.

Now, the group opposing the school is asking to join the case as additional defendants alongside state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is also against religious charter schools. Their motion argues that neither Drummond nor the charter school board can be trusted to vigorously defend the state’s secular school laws. Drummond’s term ends in January, and it is unknown whether his successor will take the same position. The board, meanwhile, hired First Liberty Institute to represent it — a conservative Christian legal group that has consistently argued that religious charter schools should be legal.

Opposition to Ben Gamla is widespread among Oklahoma Jews. The Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City sent a letter to Drummond opposing the proposed school, saying religious charter schools “risk eroding the constitutional safeguards that protect both religious freedom and government neutrality toward religion.”

Eric Baxter, the attorney representing Ben Gamla and Deutsch, has dismissed local Jewish opposition.

“The Jewish Federation doesn’t speak for all Jews. They have their own perspective,” he recently told Oklahoma’s News 9. “Peter has a much more robust view of how Jews can thrive in Oklahoma and throughout the United States.”

Baxter added that he expects the court to rule in Ben Gamla’s favor based on recent Supreme Court precedents involving religious schools.

“It’s a huge stretch to say that just because you contract with the government or receive government funding, you’re suddenly a government actor,” he said. “We’re just saying the Oklahoma Supreme Court got it wrong.”

Joining Kaiman in the group of seven is Erika DuBose, a social worker for the Cherokee Nation whose grandmother fled Germany during the Holocaust. Her daughter Sydney Gebhardt, a nonbinary high school senior who serves on the steering committee of Keshet, a Jewish organization supporting LGBTQ inclusion, also joined the motion.

“I believe that the separation of church and state helps all religions, particularly minority religions,” Gebhardt wrote. “So while I am passionate about Jewish education and support religious education in general, I believe that public funds should never be used to fund religious education, no matter the religion.”

Kara Joy McKee and her husband Gene Perry, a Jewish couple raising their child in Tulsa, say they want their child to learn about Judaism in their community and not through a government-run school.

“I also doubt that Ben Gamla is authentically committed to our Jewish values,” McKee wrote, “because it seeks to weaken the separation of church and state — which has been a crucial protection for religious minorities in this country.”

Bradley Archer, an atheist social studies teacher at an Oklahoma charter school, noted that Ben Gamla’s requirement that employees “uphold the standards of the Jewish tradition in their day-to-day work and personal lives” would bar him from working there. “I would be precluded from working as a teacher at Ben Gamla, as my atheistic beliefs prevent me from advocating for, embracing, or making life decisions based on any particular set of religious values,” he wrote.

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, said opposition to the school has been broad and consistent.

“The courts, Oklahoma public school families and taxpayers, and Jewish leaders in the state all have rejected the creation of the nation’s first religious public school,” Laser, who is Jewish, said in a statement. “We’re proud to represent Oklahomans who won’t let a religious organization backed by Christian Nationalists strong-arm the people of Oklahoma into violating the Constitution’s promises of religious freedom and church-state separation.”

Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage of the Iran war right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:

Support our independent journalists who are working around the clock under difficult conditions to cover this conflict;

Read ToI with a clear, ads-free experience on our site, apps and emails; and

Gain access to exclusive content shared only with the ToI Community, including weekly letters from founding editor David Horovitz.

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

You clearly find our careful reporting of the Iran war valuable, at a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.

Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically during this ongoing conflict.

So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

1 Netanyahu backs Iran truce; opposition blames him for worst-ever ‘diplomatic disaster’

2 Trump: US to ‘suspend bombing’ of Iran for 2 weeks while talks held on ‘longterm peace’ deal

3 InterviewHistorian Simon Schama: With parts of London ‘no-go zones,’ Jews have lost basic civil rights

4 How Trump went from threatening Iran’s annihilation to reaching a truce within a day

5 US Jewish groups denounce Trump’s threat that a ‘whole civilization will die’ in Iran

6 Trump says he believes China got Iran to come to the negotiating table

7 IDF launches largest airstrikes yet on Hezbollah; Trump: Iran truce doesn’t cover Lebanon

8 Op-edUS and Israel set out ambitious, vital war goals; as of the ceasefire, none have been achieved

US Department of Education

separation of religion and state

© The Times of Israel