MICHIGAN (JTA) – Anti-Israel protests outside of a synagogue in Ann Arbor, Michigan, are protected by the First Amendment and may continue, a federal judge ruled.
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“Peaceful protest speech such as this – on sidewalks and streets – is entitled to the highest level of constitutional protection, even if it disturbs, is offensive, and causes emotional distress,” U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts of the Eastern Michigan District Court wrote last week in dismissing a lawsuit that sought to stop the protesters, the Ann Arbor News reported.
The protests outside of Beth Israel Congregation have been held weekly at the same time as Saturday morning services for nearly two decades, since 2003. The handful of protesters who show up plant signs on the grass that read “Resist Jewish Power,” “Jewish Power Corrupts,” “No More Holocaust Movies,” “Boycott Israel,” “Stop U.S. Aid to Israel” and “End the Palestinian holocaust.”
“They fill our sidewalks with hate speech to harass our worshippers, and then claim it’s just a good public location,” Rabbi Nadav Caine said in a statement following the ruling, according to the Ann Arbor News. Caine told the Detroit Jewish News earlier this year that the protests made it impossible for his Conservative congregation to take on activities such as hosting the homeless or helping refugees; he also said he thought the city had not tried to help the synagogue.
The groups named in the lawsuit as leading the protests are Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends and Deir Yassin Remembered, which the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017 identified as a Holocaust-denying hate group. (The Palestinian village of Deir Yassin was the site of a massacre by Israeli troops in 1948.)
“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,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiffs merely allege that the defendants’ conduct causes them distress and ‘interferes’ with their enjoyment of attending religious services.”
I remember joining Jewish groups doing the same thing in front of the Soviet Union’s mission to the UN to protest how they wouldn’t let their citizens worship (or migrate). The main group was called SSSJ, Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, but the protests attracted other groups too.
Try that constitutional right against blacks!
These protesters are the Democrat party base, 3 Biden campaign officials apologized to Muslims for a Biden campaign officials mild criticism of the Jew hater sarsours speech at the DNC. The Democrats party base are anti Israel Jew haters, BDSers are all democrats, Muslim terorists supporters are all democrats, anti religious freedom all democrats. The only religious people that the democrats support are the Muslims the more radical the better.
These people should pray at home. Gevald there is a pandemic happening. When no one shows up for a few years these protesters will leave and go home. That is the best solution. I like my idea very much.
Those signs in the photograph are unrelated to the people inside who can do nothing to make changes these evil Jihadists want.
Since that’s the case, the only thing they’re doing there is harassing and slandering those inside. Therefore, I don’t see why those inside don’t change their law suit to one for harassment.
harassment
(either harris-meant or huh-rass-meant) n. the act of systematic and/or continued unwanted and annoying actions of one party or a group, including threats and demands. The purposes may vary, including racial prejudice, personal malice, an attempt to force someone to quit a job or grant sexual favors, apply illegal pressure to collect a bill, or merely gain sadistic pleasure from making someone fearful or anxious. Such activities may be the basis for a lawsuit if due to discrimination based on race or sex, a violation on the statutory limitations on collection agencies, involve revenge by an ex-spouse, or be shown to be a form of blackmail (“I’ll stop bothering you, if you’ll go to bed with me”). The victim may file a petition for a “stay away” (restraining) order, intended to prevent contact by the offensive party. A systematic pattern of harassment by an employee against another worker may subject the employer to a lawsuit for failure to protect the worker.