Kosher bakery, under fire for refusing to make Pride pastries, welcomes Supreme Court ruling

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that a Colorado web designer was justified in refusing to work on same-sex weddings for religious reasons, it delivered a timely measure of vindication to an Orthodox Jewish bakery in New Jersey.

West Orange Bake Shop, which has been in business for nearly 25 years, has been the target of social media vitriol and a mini boycott in recent days, after rejecting a local synagogue’s order of rainbow pastries for Pride month.

The Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest New Jersey announced June 20 that it was withdrawing its business, according to an article in the New Jersey Jewish News, along with a number of area rabbis who inveighed against the bakery’s policy in sermons and online.

But some expressed support for the bakery, noting a Supreme Court ruling in a 2018 case that allowed a Colorado cake shop to reject same-sex wedding orders, and MetroWest’s vice president, Dov Ben-Shimon, issued a statement June 27 saying: “We sincerely regret that our actions have caused divisiveness in our community.”

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