Last week, an Emergency Application (full text) was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay pending appellate review in Strulovich v. Bain, (Sup. Ct., filed 9/17/2026). The case involves a dispute between business associates over whether their business issues should be decided by a rabbinical court or a civil court, and if the former, which rabbinical court. (See prior posting and decisions below). The Emergency Application filed with Justice Sotomayor says in part:
A New York trial court has directly intruded on the free exercise of religion by ordering Applicant Samuel Strulovitch, who is a religious Jew, to refrain from trying to resolve a monetary dispute in a rabbinical court (Hebrew: “beis din”), as he sincerely believes he must. That alone would be extraordinary. But the trial court went further still by ordering Strulovitch to attempt to convince that same rabbinical court to reverse a religious determination that he agrees with.
In this case, Strulovitch brought an underlying commercial dispute between two Jewish parties to a beis din, attempting to have the parties voluntarily agree to resolve it under Jewish law—as he sincerely believes he must. The beis din then issued a seruv (a religious censure of recalcitrance, with no civil consequences) against Respondent Moshe Bain for having previously sought and obtained an order enjoining Strulovitch from fulfilling his obligation under Jewish law to pursue his case in Jewish court. Strulovitch believes the beis din was right, as a matter of Jewish law, to issue the seruv…. The trial court nonetheless ordered him to cease his efforts before the beis din and “take all steps necessary” to undo the seruv, including withdrawing the proceeding altogether….
That unconstitutional order squarely violates the First Amendment….
Justice Sotomayor ordered Bain to file a response to the petition by Sept. 23.
National Review reports on the case.