CASE UPDATE: Circuit court sides with antisemitic protestors

Dear friends,

The night before Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a blow to members of Beth Israel Synagogue in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For the past seventeen years, the congregants have been harassed by a group of antisemitic agitators conducting hostile "protests" outside the synagogue's sanctuary every Saturday during Sabbath services.

The Lawfare Project, together with lead counsel, represents some of the congregants in a lawsuit which asked the Court to place reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on the protesters' conduct to allow the congregants to worship free from harassment. However, three judges of the Sixth Circuit ruled that they would place no limits on the protestors, despite their ability to do so under the First Amendment.

This ruling comes amid a rising tide of antisemitic violence in the U.S. and across the world, especially that which targets Jewish worshippers. On Yom Kippur, German authorities thwarted a planned attack on a synagogue in Hagen. They also had to hold back nearly two hundred unruly protesters who were chanting antisemitic threats outside another synagogue in Gelsenkirchen.

As Jews are under attack around the world, this ruling sends precisely the wrong message — that Jews who wish to worship at their synagogue without fear do not have the protection of the First Amendment to do so.

We intend to fight this ruling with every exhaustible legal option. The Lawfare Project, along with co-counsel, will be filing a petition for en banc review.

One of the erroneous assertions in the opinion is that our lawsuit aims to suppress free speech. This is a blatant mischaracterization of the relief the congregants are seeking. The pleadings specifically state that we are seeking reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions that would keep the protests a thousand feet from the synagogue so that they are not harassing or disruptive to the congregants.

The Lawfare Project will not back down as Ann Arbor's Jewish community continues to suffer the emotional trauma of being continually harassed — often with words and signage that minimize the Holocaust — every single weekend on their way to and from Shabbat services. We will continue to support this legal battle and defend the rights of all Jews who wish to worship in peace and security free from harassment.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support. Our work would not be possible without you.

Sincerely,

Brooke Goldstein
Executive Director, The Lawfare Project