US Federal Judge Allows Antisemitism Lawsuit to Proceed Against Powerful Lawyers Union

A US federal judge ruled on Tuesday that an antisemitism lawsuit accusing the powerful Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) union can continue over the objections of the organization’s formidable legal counsel, which attempted to have the case dismissed by arguing that it is “self-serving” and “anti-democratic.”

On Wednesday, officials from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which is representing the aggrieved parties, hailed the procedural victory in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York as a testament to the veracity of the allegations of which the ALAA is accused.

“We are enormously gratified with this ruling vindicating our clients’ federal labor law rights to oppose antisemitism in their union, including their right to sue over a virulently anti-Israel resolution proposed just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack,” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “The Brandeis Center will defend Jewish and non-Jewish union members who stand up for themselves and against antisemitism and with all the lawful tools available to them.”

Brandeis Center senior counsel Rory Lancman added, “In standing up for what it is right, these courageous legal aid lawyers faced expulsion and a campaign of demonization that has taken an enormous toll on then, both professionally and personally. We look forward to proceeding with this case and fully vindicating their rights under federal labor law.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the union for New York public defenders allegedly degenerated into a “cornucopia of classic modern antisemitism” in the months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. Just weeks after the massacre, the ALAA passed a virulently anti-Israel resolution which made only a passing reference to Hamas’s atrocities and launched a smear campaign against Jewish members who opposed it. Following that, the union facilitated the filing of “formal charges” against Jewish and Zionist members, attempting to expel them from its ranks.

Antisemitic conduct in the ALAA took other forms, the complaint alleged. Members commended Hamas’s violence, chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and denied that the terrorist group had murdered women and children. In one incident, someone allegedly asserted that Zionist beliefs would prevent Jewish attorneys from “zealously” defending Muslims, Palestinians, and Arabs and lead them to conspire against them and sabotage their cases.

“If they support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, why would they not have a reason to collude with prosecutors and other adversaries to deprive our clients of justice in the courts,” ALAA member Marlen Bodden wrote in an “officewide” email on Nov. 16, 2023.

“It is a legitimate question,” Monica Dula responded.

A ranking official attempted to stop the conversation from descending into a pitch and catch of antisemitic tropes, but the idea that Jews would work against their clients had allegedly been planted weeks earlier. On Oct. 13, 2023, Saara Ashid suggested that a Jewish attorney would not “stand up for Black and Brown folk in the same way,” according to the lawsuit. She added, “I’m starting to worry about all of your clients.”

By Nov. 17, ALAA was scheduled to vote on a resolution that the complaint describes as a “1,147-word diatribe against the existence of the Jewish state, replete with deceitful blood libels designed to arouse the most ancient antisemitic hatreds.” Resolved to stop it from taking place, several Jewish members, accusing the union of breach of contract and fostering a professional culture that would discourage Jews from seeking legal counsel from ALAA affiliated attorneys, sought and were granted a temporary restraining order which delayed the proceeding.

Angered by the ruling, their colleagues allegedly sought to expel them from the union entirely, with one member accusing them “of snitching behavior.” A volley of similar comments were launched in an email thread over the next several days, the lawsuit notes, with Emmanuel Garcia writing “if you are a snitch please do us a favor and kill yourself” and David Tobias commenting “careful, snitches are in this thread, they might snitch on you and air strike your home with your family in it.”

ALAA then moved to file charges against its Jewish members, accusing them of attempting to “interrupt a democratic process on an internal union matter” and violating the union’s “core” mission. The anti-Israel resolution has since been passed, and a trial of the members is forthcoming.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post US Federal Judge Allows Antisemitism Lawsuit to Proceed Against Powerful Lawyers Union first appeared on Algemeiner.com.