8 | SEPTEMBER 30 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued from page 7

“American-Israeli relations.” 
Why do Ann Arbor’s anti- 
Israel zealots find it most 
meaningful to express their 
“public discourse in public 
fora” on Saturday mornings 
between 9:30 and 11:30 adja-
cent to a synagogue? 
 Is this truly “public dis-
course” on “matters of public 
concern?” Are those who 
gather for two hours on 
Saturday mornings really 
trying to persuade the Jewish 
congregants with their plac-
ards? Or are they harassing 
and intimidating a religious 
minority that has suffered 
centuries of intolerance and 
hatred?
With all respect to Chief 
Judge Sutton’s legal acumen, 
there are solid reasons in fed-
eral and Michigan law to sus-
tain the Jewish worshippers’ 
claim that gatherings and 
placards designed to harass 
and intimidate Jewish wor-
shippers are not shielded by 
the Constitution. Even Sutton 
acknowledges in his cursory 
review of the complaint that 
the claims cannot be called 
“frivolous.”
Federal law gave the con-
gregants only until Sept. 29, 
when Jews around the world 
will be celebrating Simchat 
Torah, to file a request with 
the Sixth Circuit to have the 
appeal considered anew by 
the full court of 16 active 
Circuit Judges (along with 
the senior judge who agreed 
with Sutton and is entitled 
under federal law to sit on a 
rehearing).
Six of the Sixth Circuit’s 
current judges were appoint-
ed by President Donald 
Trump and four by President 
George W. Bush. They, along 
with the court’s only active 
Jewish judge, may disagree 

with Sutton’s summary 
rejection of the plaintiffs’ 23 
legal claims. If the appeal is 
reheard, the court may hear 
and learn from many more 
friends of the court than the 
ACLU, which was the only 
amicus curiae in the argu-
ment before three judges that 
looked like only a technical 
legal dispute over “standing.”
William L. Shirer, author 
of the Rise and Fall of the 
Third Reich, was the most 
authoritative eyewitness and 
reporter of life in Germany 
in the years leading to the 
Holocaust. He kept a daily 
personal journal published in 
1941 titled Berlin Diary.
A telling entry is April 
21, 1935, which was Easter 
Sunday and Passover. 
Shirer noted that he took 
the weekend off, and he 
reported, “The hotel mainly 
filled with Jews, and we are 
a little surprised to see so 
many of them still prospering 
and apparently unafraid. 
I think they are unduly 
optimistic.”
How right he was. Less 
than five months later, the 
Nazis formally codified Jew-
hatred with the Nuremberg 
Laws, which deprived 
Germany’s Jews of citizenship 
and all basic human rights.
Action is needed now if we 
learn the lesson of history. 
The late Todd Beamer said 
it in a heroic effort on the 
hijacked Flight 93 to avert 
another 9-11 tragedy, “OK. 
Let’s roll.” 

Nathan Lewin is a criminal 
defense attorney with a Supreme 
Court practice who has taught at 
Georgetown, Harvard, University of 
Chicago, George Washington and 
Columbia law schools. 
 

See a related story on page 24.

Danny Fenster’s

Fight for Freedom

Danny Fenster in Yangon, Myanmar, before his incarceration.

The Detroit Jewish News 
urges the community to fight 
for the release of Huntington 
Woods native Danny Fenster 
— a journalist who has been 
held without cause and 
without specified charges for 

by a military junta in a 
gruesome prison in 
Myanmar (Burma).
130 days

Support Danny at:

BringDannyHome.com

fenster-verse.tumblr.com

facebook.com/groups/1164768597279223.

(See a related story on page 20.)

