I am very grateful to be given this opportunity to testify about a matter of great concern and interest to our organization.

My observations about the issues of concern to the Commission are based on our organization's long history as a grass roots movement which includes both employers and employees.

These views are enhanced by our experiences at Project COPE during the past three years. During this period, our agency processed 15,000 job applications for the unemployed, under-employed and economically disadvantaged of all ethnic origins. Of these 2,000 people were trained and placed through a network of offices and programs throughout the City of New York.

Since January 1975, we have worked with well over 1,000 employers, businesses of all sizes. As a result of this experience we have learned a great deal about how employers can accommodate the religious needs of their employees.

Many years before COPE, Agudath Israel of America had already effectively mobilized support for legislation to protect Sabbath observers in the public and private employ.

These laws were subsequently passed in many state legislatures and have been the subject of litigation on many occasions.

On the other hand, we have learned to perceive of the dimensions of the problem in completely different terms. Despite legislation, we are still faced with a subtle discrimination which continues to affect thousands of Orthodox Jews and others who are, as a result, being denied equal opportunity in employment.

There is no question that the problem created by such discrimination have had a far reaching effect on the welfare of the entire Jewish community.

As a Rabbi, I would like to depart slightly from my prepared testimony for just a few moments to explain the most serious type of discrimination against Orthodox Jews.

As Jews, we live by the laws handed down to us on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago in the form of the Old Testament known to us as the Torah. One of the cardinal tenets of that law is that Jews rest on the seventh day of the week, a day in which all work is forbidden without exception. It is a day which begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. It is a day which is holy-sanctified for service to the Lord. A day which is reserved for prayer, study and for family union.

In addition, work is also prohibited on several Jewish religious holidays such as Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Succoth, Simchat Torah, Passover and Shavout. A fundamental part of Jewish faith, the prohibitions against work on

these days has for years caused the greatest grief to those who observe Jewish law in full.

For many years and until the not too distant past observant Jews could not obtain work at all because of their refusal to work on their Sabbath, especially when business as a whole was still on a six and seven day work week.

Admittedly, there have been some encouraging signs during the past decade. Corporations and companies in all areas which had heretofore never given a Sabbath observer a chance are now at least giving them the opportunity, but their ranks are small and are growing at a snail's pace.

Those companies who have hired Orthodox Jews have generally found them to be conscientious, highly motivated, and commited to their job. Perhaps something that they have learned from their religion. For those concerns which have at least taken the step of studying the problem intelligently and have subsequently learned that there is a great myth about hiring a Sabbath observer, and to those of course we do not address ourselves this afternoon.

But the number of fair-minded corporate leaders and progressive concerns is limited.

In our COPE experience we have found that those employers who have made the "sacrifice" to hire a Sabbath observer have learned that religious needs can be met with a small measure of goodwill and without any undue hardship to the business as a whole.

While business is forever preoccupied with the profit motive, much of its leadership sometimes, I feel, operates in an otherwise intellectual

vacuum.

People who are responsible for hiring do not understand the culture and background of the people they interview and subsequently hire. As a result, decisions are made that may be detrimental to persons seeking employment as well as those seeking promotions for that matter.

In reviewing our record of placing hundreds of people, which as I mentioned includes people of all faiths, color and ethnic origins, we are pleased to note the diverse sectors of the economic society that have taken the step to eliminate discrimination.

Some of the industries and professions where we have successfully torn down the barriers of discrimination include banking, health care, industry, computer technology, the clerical fields, automotive, managerial and accounting, to name but a few.

In each of these cases, there is a common scenario of a personnel manager who is willing to gamble, either because of our CETA federally funded on-the-job training program provided some kind of financial

inducement or where training was not involved, where someone was just willing to take a gamble.

Within our agency, there is a Department of Job Development. Their primary function is to canvass the business world for vacant positions. They act as salespeople and in effect they are the people who address these concerns to the employers.

The feedback from this department is intriguing.

They tell us, for example, the large majority of businesses who are simply ignorant of what it means to be an Orthodox Jew. Many were not aware that though Sabbath observers must leave their work several hours before sundown on Friday just to make it home; they can and are willing to make up the time at other times.

In fact, some of the companies that we have dealt with have made such accommodations by either reducing lunch hour periods; requiring employees to begin earlier than others or stay late; or having employees make up days on Sundays, holidays, vacations or personal leave.

Most skilled Orthodox Jews will readily accept such an arrangement out of an understanding that a company should not be made to absorb losses as a result of hiring them.

On many occasions, our job developers have found a reluctance on the part of employers to hire Orthodox Jews because of the Yarmulke, the head covering required by Jewish law or for that matter the garb of the Hasidic Jew.

Once again, these employers failed to realize that the Yarmulke was in no way a handicap in the performance of a job nor was the Hasidic garb a shortcoming in carrying out the necessary functions of any kind of work.

Employers would do well to note that their customers and others with whom they deal with on a daily basis are way ahead of them and fully appreciate the fact that pluralism in America is a reality to be seen, appreciated and loved in every facet of our society.

If this is the case, and there is no one that will argue that it is not, then business should not be exempt from cultural pluralism.

A basic tenet in the reluctance to hire Sabbath observers, I believe, has been the lack of simple knowledge and information on behalf of personnel directors and others in management.

Some were found to grossly exaggerate the number of religious holidays in any given year, in some cases placing them as high as 30 and 40 when in fact there are six or seven days.

Others thought that early departures on Friday was a year round phenomenon when, in fact it is only true during the shorter winter days when sunset is early.

There were many concerns that never understood what it means to be

* Mui vosenver. We have some cases where employers suggested trat employees practice the Sabbath at work, and others wondered why the Orandon Bew could not substitute pubür transportation or their ww venue for a taxi driven by someone else on the Sabbath, failing to krønext tat all forms of transportation are forbidden to the Jew. Based on these facts, and the cases that have come before us, we can vą suence that there is some kind of need for a broad educational ed at the business world explaining the needs of Oradan jewer for that matter, as we have heard this morning, of other X928

One of the problems that we have been faced with even when we have educational campaign is the changing of personnel of a dules excern. Just when a manager or personnel director was M: KAH. Vt wderstood the specific needs of the Orthodox Jew, there

personnel

Tie wiazan of people involved in management should perhaps 42 college level. Part of the management syllabus should young this with discrimination, not so much from a legal point of sew, na through an understanding of the diferent cultures.

Whenever we have had the opportunity to discuss this matter with err pojera, we have also stressed that religious requirements do not in any way infringe upon the ability of Orthodox Jews to perform on the yo. We tave always in a sense told them, "Try it; you'll like it.”

It is also important to note that in serving Orthodox Jewish applivarta, we have found them to be extremely apprehensive because of their concern over acceptance by employers.

Job applicants ask our guidance counsellors openly, "Should we inform the interviewer that we are Sabbath observers?", "Should we wait until we are already on the job?" "Should we wear our Yarmulke to an interview?" "Should we not wear our Yarmulke to an interview?”

The same dilemma occurs when a Sabbath observer has to fill out a job application which calls for educational background information and he might have to note that he attended a Jewish day school, a slight hint of Sabbath observance. If an applicant is nervous, you can imagine how nervous this applicant is sitting in front of an interviewer.

As a result of our experiences with both employers and employees, we would strongly urge that education be a top priority as I have noted. We have seen from our own experiences, in instances where we have successfully broken through, and I consider each attempt almost a battle, that with proper information and understanding on the part of both employers and employees, we can eventually make enormous inroads towards eliminating discrimination as a result of religious belief.

I wish to commend such organizations as the Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) for playing an important role in constantly airing these concerns of the Orthodox Jewish community.

I also want to thank you, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, for taking the initiative in convening such hearings. It is certainly a first step. We have a long way to go, but a first step nonetheless.

Chair NORTON: Thank you, Mr. Lubinsky. I'd like to ask you, particularly in a city and state like this where the principles of accommodation are, as far as city and state law, and are well accepted by at least some employers, whether or not you noted a particular response from employers following the Hardison decision last summer and whether you noted any response from employers around the time of the high holy days?

Rabbi LUBINSKY: Usually what happens is that the high holy days come at a period where the holidays are bunched together; immediately following Hashanah comes Yom Kippur and then immediately after that it's Sukkot and then Simchat, Torah, and then Shemini Atzeret and whatever.

What we have found is that they suddenly become very impatient, and they say another Jewish holiday, another Jewish holiday! But actually when you sit down and you add it up, because holidays usually fall on weekends or whatever, it amounts to at most six days during that month, and then there is no Jewish holiday for something like six months after that. That is a time of great stress and we would not recommend that anyone go for a job interview one week before, for fear that not only would Sabbath be a problem, but the cluster of the holidays in effect.

Chair NORTON: You have found that to be the case, even in this City? Rabbi LUBINSKY: Very much so. It is surprising, I might add, that a lot of people would think that New York City should be the best educated. Yet perhaps they are better educated, but not the best educated.

Chair NORTON: Have you found in your experience that there is any particular self-selection out of certain areas of employment based on the sense of Sabbath observance? Other religious observors with whom you are in contact, of the possibility of exclusion in some areas?

Rabbi LUBINSKY: There are companies, for example, that make the distinction that in some areas, occupational areas they will hire a Sabbath observer, and in some occupational areas they will not. The banking industry, for example, claims where it involves direct services to clients-in other words, bank tellers, they will not hire a Sabbath observer, with the exception of a few banks that are in Orthodox Jewish