8 | JULY 28 • 2022
opinion
Ann Arbor Picketing Ruling is an Injustice
I
am writing this in honor
of Dr. Miriam Brysk, who
passed away on May 28,
2022, at the age of 87.
Miriam
was born in
Warsaw in
1935. When the
Nazis invaded
Poland, she
and her family
escaped to the
Lida ghetto in
Belarus, where Miriam, at
the age of 7, witnessed the
execution of Lida’s Jews on
May 8, 1942. Miriam’s family
was spared because her father
was a physician, and the
Nazis conscripted her father
into treating wounded Nazi
soldiers.
In November 1942, Jews in
the Russian partisans rescued
Miriam’s family from the
ghetto and brought them to
the nearby Lipiczany forest,
where the Russian partisans
were hiding from the Nazis
and conducting raids on
the Nazi forces. Her father
established a surgical hospital
in the forest to treat Jewish
and Russian partisans alike.
Miriam’s head was shaved, and
she wore boy’s clothing and
was given a pistol to protect
herself from being raped.
After the war, her family
immigrated to the United
States in February 1947,
as she turned 12 years old.
She came to America with
no knowledge of English or
previous schooling and had a
lot of catching up to do.
She finished high school
at 17 years of age, obtained a
Bachelor of Science in biology
and chemistry from NYU,
a Master of Science from
the University of Michigan
in Microbiology, and then
a Ph.D. in Biological and
Biomedical Sciences from
Columbia University.
After obtaining her Ph.D.,
she became a professor at the
University of Texas in three
medical school departments,
Dermatology, Microbiology
and Biochemistry, and then
became the director of the
Dermatology Research
Laboratory at the University
of Texas Medical Branch. In
1971, she and her husband,
Henry Brysk, who was also
a survivor of the Holocaust
from France and a theoretical
physicist, moved to Ann
Arbor.
Miriam attended services
at the Pardes Hannah
congregation, located in the
annex next to Beth Israel
Synagogue. At her funeral,
her two daughters gave
poignant eulogies, celebrating
Miriam’s love of life, fiercely
independent spirit, intellectual
and scientific curiosity, and
her loving devotion to them
and to Henry.
LAWSUIT FILED
I had the honor of
representing Miriam, in
conjunction with Marvin
Gerber, in a lawsuit filed in
the U.S. District Court in
Detroit, seeking to obtain
an injunction to curtail the
weekly protests of the neo-
Nazi, antisemitic protesters
who have been plaguing Beth
Israel every Shabbat morning
for now 18 years.
As a Holocaust survivor
who had witnessed the
depredations caused by
the Nazis, fueled by their
antisemitism, and a fervent
supporter of Israel, Miriam
was incensed at seeing the
antisemitic and anti-Israel
signs in front of Beth Israel
whenever she attended
services at Pardes Hannah,
signs bearing such messages
as “Jewish Power Corrupts”;
“Resist Jewish Power”; “No
More Holocaust Movies”;
“Boycott Israel”; and “Stop
U.S. Aid To Israel.”
At the end of the affidavit
which Miriam signed and
which was filed with the
federal court in support of
the lawsuit, Miriam wrote:
“The protesters try to compare
Israel to Nazi Germany, but
they do not know what they
are talking about. I have
visited Israel many times.
As a Holocaust survivor, as
a person who saw with my
own eyes what the Nazis did,
for the protesters to compare
Israel with Nazi Germany
sickens and angers me. They
were not there. I was.”
In the lawsuit which I
filed on behalf of Miriam
and Mr. Gerber, we were
seeking, first and foremost,
a limited injunction to
place reasonable time, place
and manner distance and
temporal restrictions on the
protesters’ conduct, a form
of relief which is frequently
granted in numerous lawsuits,
including lawsuits involving
protests at abortion clinics.
Were not a synagogue and its
congregants entitled to the
same degree of protection of
their constitutional right of
freedom of worship, not to
be harassed and stalked, as
women asserting their, then
constitutional right to obtain
an abortion?
To my deepest
disappointment and
consternation, we lost the
lawsuit. Judge Victoria
Roberts dismissed the case,
claiming that the emotional
distress which Miriam and
Mr. Gerber indicated they
experienced upon seeing
the signs in front of the
synagogue, did not constitute
a “concrete” injury sufficient
to afford them “standing” to
sue in the context of the First
Amendment right of free
speech.
I frankly found that ruling
astoundingly ludicrous, in
light of the thousands of
lawsuits, in both state and
federal courts, in which
emotional distress was the
only basis upon which the
plaintiffs were allowed to sue.
RULING ON APPEAL
On appeal, the Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals, in a 2-1
decision, reversed Judge
Roberts’ ruling, stating, “[T]he
congregants have standing to
sue because they have credibly
pleaded an injury — extreme
emotional distress — that has
stamped a plaintiff’s ticket
into court for centuries.”
The court went further,
however, and addressed
an issue which was not
legitimately addressed by
Judge Roberts, an issue which
she was precluded from
Marc
Susselman
PURELY COMMENTARY
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