The Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals last week upheld US District Court Judge Victoria Roberts’s 2020 ruling in a two-year lawsuit against unceasing, relentless antisemitic protesters outside their Ann Arbor, Michigan synagogue – charging plaintiffs Marvin Gerber and Miriam Brysk, and attorney Marc Susselman, close to $159,000 to cover the protesters’ legal defense fees, Michigan Live reported Friday.
Those antisemitic protests have been staged outside Ann Arbor’s Beth Israel synagogue every Shabbat morning during services for close to 20 years. They will now be allowed to continue, seeing as Judge Roberts considers them, including prominent signs that say “Jewish Power Corrupts,” and “Resist Jewish Power,” “No More Holocaust Movies,” “Boycott Israel,” “Stop US Aid to Israel,” and “End the Palestinian holocaust” an expression of free speech.
“There is no allegation that the protesters prevent plaintiffs from attending Sabbath services, that they block plaintiffs’ path onto the property or to the synagogue, or that the protests and signs outside affect the services inside,” Judge Roberts commented last Wednesday – ignoring the suggestion that free speech becomes harassment when it’s repeated every week for almost two decades. According to the judge, peaceful demonstrations are “entitled to the highest level of constitutional protection, even if it disturbs, is offensive and causes emotional distress.”
Attorney Susselman, the lead counsel in the federal case, called the judge’s ruling on legal fees “a reversible error” and said he plans to petition the Court of Appeals’ decision with the US Supreme Court.
The weekly demonstrations have been organized by Henry Herskovitz, an anti-Jewish Holocaust denier residing in Ann Arbor, MI. Herskovitz is the founder of Jewish Witnesses for Peace, a group that sees its mission as putting an end to “Jewish supremacism in Palestine,” and a “peaceful dismantling” of the state of Israel through boycotts, divestments, and sanctions, coupled with termination of all US aid to Israel.
The group has protested on the sidewalk in front of Congregation Beth Israel since September 13, 2003, and said it would go away when the Board of Directors publicly states its full support for “full civil and political equality of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel within Israel; prompt implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees of 1947-8 and 1967 to return to their homes and properties in Israel and Palestine as stipulated in UN resolution 194; and prompt the end of Israeli occupation and colonization of all lands seized by Israel in 1967.”
Herskovitz for his part said that he would stop protesting when the Congregation takes down the Israeli flag from its building.
last week, the Ann Arbor city council for the first time issued a formal resolution condemning the protests as antisemitic, declaring: “The Ann Arbor City Council condemns all forms of antisemitism and in particular the weekly antisemitic rally on Washtenaw Avenue.” The resolution “calls upon the persons who rally to express antisemitism on Washtenaw Avenue to renounce extremism, disband, and cease their weekly show of aggressive bigotry.” The council also “declares its support for the Beth Israel Congregation, their guests, and all members of the Jewish Community in Ann Arbor, each of whom has the right to worship, gather, and celebrate free from intimidation, harassment, and fear of violence.”
H/T Elder of Zion