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12 | APRIL 23 • 2020 

The plaintiffs are asking that 
the court either stop the protest-
ers altogether or place restrictions 
on their conduct. They’
re also 
seeking damages. 
Outside organizations have 
gotten involved on both sides. 
On Feb. 24, The Lawfare Project, 
a New York-based legal network 
that works to defend the Jewish 
and pro-Israel community, joined 
the lawsuit as a co-counsel and 
to provide financial assistance. 
Then, on March 17, the Michigan 
chapter of the American Civil 
Liberties Union filed a brief on 
behalf of the defendants, arguing 
that Witness for Peace’
s actions 
are indeed protected under the 
First Amendment. 
 “The offensive, distressing, 
and even outrageous nature of 
their demonstration cannot jus-
tify any of the relief the plaintiffs 
seek here,
” the ACLU brief says, 
citing several landmark free-
speech cases.
But the Lawfare Project 
believes the nature of the group’
s 
protest moves the case out of the 

realm of free speech.
“The protesters’
 attempt to use 
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
to impede the religious prac-
tice of the worshippers at Beth 
Israel Congregation, by staging 
aggressive protests outside what 
is permissible by city code, and 
with anti-Semitic signs such as 
‘
Jewish Power Corrupts’
 and 
‘
Resist Jewish Power,
’
 is unaccept-
able,
” Zipora Reich, director of 
litigation at the Lawfare Project, 
told the JN.
“Unlike our ancestors who 
had no legal recourse to stop 
anti-Semitism, we live in a 
country with constitutional pro-
tections. The Lawfare Project 
believes that it is incumbent upon 
the Jewish community to avail 
itself of those protections.
”
The lawsuit is undergoing 
preliminary legal steps in court, 
and Susselman said he hopes to 
determine whether Ann Arbor 
city code prohibits parts of the 
protesters’
 activity. 
“If we prevail on those 
motions—and we are cautiously 

optimistic that we will prevail—
there will be a trial to determine 
if the protesters and the city have 
been violating the plaintiffs’
 con-
stitutional and civil rights over 
the last 16½ years,
” Susselman 
said. He suspects that trial would 
occur this fall or in early 2021. 
On March 26, the defendants’
 
attorneys filed a motion to dis-
miss the case. 

ROOTS IN HATE
Beyond the signs themselves, 
there are several other links 
between Witness for Peace and 
anti-Semitism.
Herskovitz is a former 
board member of Deir Yassin 
Remembered, an organization 
founded in memory of the 1948 
massacre of Palestinians in Deir 
Yassin, a village near Jerusalem. 
In 2017, the Southern Poverty 
Law Center declared Deir Yassin 
Remembered a hate group under 
the category of Holocaust denial, 
although an SPLC spokesperson 
said the group’
s Ann Arbor chap-
ter has since been removed from 

their list due to inactivity. 
Herskovitz was removed from 
the organization’
s board after a 
new director took over earlier 
this year. But he’
s written blogs 
praising neo-Nazis like Ernst 
Zündel, who was imprisoned 
in both Germany and Canada 
for speech inciting racial hatred 
before his death in 2017, as well 
as white supremacist Richard 
Spencer. 
Herskovitz said members of 
the Ann Arbor city council have 
previously called him a Holocaust 
denier. For his part, he calls him-
self “
a Holocaust revisionist.
”
The Anti-Defamation League 
has tagged Witness for Peace as 
anti-Semitic. Herskovitz insists 
they’
re a “love group.
” 
“We love our country and we 
love the Palestinians,
” Herskovitz 
told the JN. “We hate what Jews 
are doing in the Jewish state… 
but we don’
t hate [Jews].
” 
But to Nadav Caine, Beth 
Israel’
s rabbi, the protests are 
clearly anti-Semitic. 
“It’
s really not about Palestinian 

Beth Israel congregants Judy and 
Todd Endelman of Ann Arbor on their 
way into the synagogue for services. 

“The protesters, despite their claim 
otherwise, are anti-Semites pure 
and simple. Who else would picket a 
synagogue regularly on Shabbat? If 
you read their signs, you can see 
they are not really concerned with 
peace and justice in the Middle East. 
Their main goal is to foment hatred of 
Jews.” — Todd Endelman
—

Jews in the D

