A federal judge dismissed the U.S. Justice Department’s complaint accusing anti-Israel protesters of attacking and obstructing Jews at a New Jersey synagogue, suggesting that two men, whom the department identified as victims, may have interfered with a protester’s rights.
Katharine Hayden, of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, dismissed the claim against American Muslims for Palestine New Jersey, the Party for Socialism and Liberation New Jersey, Tova Fry, Altaf Sharif, Matt Dragon and Eric Camins in her Sept. 30 ruling.
The Justice Department alleged that Moshe Glick and David Silberberg were assaulted outside Congregation Ohr Torah, an Orthodox synagogue in West Orange, N.J., on Nov. 13, 2024.
At the time, there was an Israeli real estate fair at the synagogue, which Glick organized and which Silberberg attended. There were also religious activites taking place at the time, when protesters gathered outside the synagogue.
Protesters made threats and tried to obstruct Jews from entering a house of worship, violating the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the FACE Act.
Hayden wrote that “arguably these facts just as easily support the inference that Glick and Silberberg interfered with Sharif’s First Amendment right to be part of the protest.”
She warned that treating every physical confrontation during a demonstration as a statutory violation “would demonize protesters, who exercise their own First Amendment rights as being part of a mob.”
Hayden found insufficient facts connecting each defendant to the FACE Act and wrote that for Sharif, the complaint did not adequately connect his alleged violence to intentional interference with religious exercise.
“Getting into a scuffle during a protest, a scuffle that took place somewhere on the grounds of the place of worship, definitely away from its entrance, does not mean that person’s conduct falls under FACE Act interdiction,” she wrote.
Hayden also found that though the complaint alleged that the protesters “made passage to or from the synagogue unreasonably difficult or hazardous,” the court “does not decide whether the crowd-level allegations concerning the sidewalk, synagogue grounds or noise may establish physical obstruction or another statutory violation.”
“More to the point, were the court to decide that the described obstruction was a sufficient allegation to satisfy the FACE Act, then every protester there would be a defendant,” she ruled.
Addressing allegations that Camins pointed at Silberberg and said “the Jew is here” in order to get Sharif to “beat him up,” the judge found that “context is missing.”
“He could just as easily be warning Sharif that Silberberg was threatening violence against Sharif,” Hayden wrote.
The Justice Department has 30 days to amend its complaint.
Glick, who faced state charges stemming from the confrontation, received a pardon from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy in January just before Murphy left office.
