Orthodox Jew takes home prayer lawsuit to Supreme Court

The Ohio homeowner argues secular gatherings would not have drawn similar scrutiny from authorities.

By World Israel News Staff

An Ohio man is asking the Supreme Court to hear his case after alleging that city officials repeatedly harassed him for hosting a small prayer group in his home.

Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jewish resident of University Heights, said the city pressured him to apply for a permit classifying his home as a house of worship after neighbors complained about him hosting a minyan, a Jewish prayer service requiring a quorum of men.

According to Grand, city officials urged him to seek the permit without explaining that doing so could jeopardize his ability to continue living in the home.

Once he understood the implications, Grand withdrew the application. However, he claims the city then engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation aimed at preventing him from hosting prayer gatherings, he told Fox News Digital.

Among the actions alleged by Grand were frequent police patrols past his home to determine whether he was holding “unauthorized” prayer services, encouraging neighbors to monitor and report on him, and issuing what he described as “bogus” zoning and property violations.

Grand and his attorneys are now petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the case, arguing that the city’s efforts to restrict religious activity in his home violate his constitutional rights.

“We expect that the Supreme Court, hopefully, will do the right thing and will resolve this in the right way that doesn’t allow local governments to use a legal loophole to just run roughshod over people’s constitutional rights,” Jonathan Gross, an attorney representing Grand, told Fox News Digital.

He contends that authorities would not have devoted the same resources to investigating alleged zoning violations if he had been hosting secular gatherings instead.

“It’s just absurd,” Grand told Fox News Digital. “I live here. It’s my house. It’s still my house… whether they’re reading Oprah’s Book Club of the Month or a Bible, Oprah’s Book Club is fine, but the Bible is a problem, according to that mayor of University Heights,” he said.

Grand’s petition has drawn support from religious liberty advocacy groups representing a range of faith communities, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.