National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School may continue pursuing plans to become the nation’s first religious charter school while its legal challenge to an Oklahoma law moves forward, a federal judge ruled.
According to Baptist Press, the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation is challenging provisions of the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act that bar religious organizations from operating publicly funded charter schools because of their religious character.
“The nonsectarian provision in the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients solely because of their religious character,” Judge David L. Russell wrote for the U.S. District Court of Western Oklahoma, “because it violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
“The court again emphasizes that by this opinion it does not express a judgment on the wisdom of the State of Oklahoma opening up its coffers to charter schools of disparate philosophical or educational persuasions,” Russell wrote. “However, having done so, it cannot, pursuant to the Free Exercise Clause, single out religious schools for exclusion solely because of their religious character.”
Foundation founder Peter Deutsch established the Ben Gamla Charter School Foundation in 2006 and now operates four Florida charter schools offering secular curricula that include Hebrew, Israeli history and Jewish culture.
In 2025, he formed the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation in Oklahoma and applied to launch a statewide online charter school.
The effort follows the unsuccessful bid by St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to open what would have been Oklahoma’s first religious charter school in 2023. The U.S. Supreme Court later split 4-4, leaving intact an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling against the school.
