Creeping Closer to Fascism??–Using the Law to Silence Dissent

By: Avraham Sharaby

The greatness of this country rests with a Constitution intended to protect both human rights and G-d given rights. Included in that is the principal of equality under the law. In other words, all men (and women) are created equal and to be treated as such under the law.

This Constitutional system was laid down with the best intentions of promoting freedom by resolving disputes in the most equitable and fair way. Tragically over the centuries since this Country’s inception, the legal system has been increasingly abused to a point where that same vehicle of freedom has been manipulated to preclude people from exercising their G-d given and Constitutionally protected freedoms, be it of Speech found in the first Amendment and many of the other freedoms we enjoy, Freedom of Press and the right to Due Process, both also found in the First Amendment .

Today’s political climate creates an environment where legal actions are used to silence anything someone does not like. On the National level, we saw a President impeached for a conversation his opponents did not like; but saw the President unwilling to comply with Constitutionally founded principals of justice. How many millions of dollars were spent by all sides?

Within our local Jewish community, we’ve witnessed two Satmar billionaire brothers from Brooklyn filing a defamation lawsuit against a formerly anonymous Rockland County blogger (“Lost Messiah”) who got outed without any ability to defend both against unmasking her anonymity or a judicial conclusion resting upon fundamental inaccuracies. The posts in question were removed long ago at the demand of the Plaintiff. Nonetheless, the lawsuit continues in full force, under cover of judicial shield. Why? In reality, the reasons have not been disclosed. The likely guess is either an attempt to bully the blogger to close her site or to cause her significant distress by draining her of the finances needed to defend the suit and any energy she might have. It is a war of attrition.

This is not the first and only suit of its kind, though it seems to be the only one that has been judicially shielded. In Lakewood, NJ a similar lawsuit is unfolding, though in Lakewood no effort was made to unmask the names of the journalists. Rather, assumptions were made and a wide net cast on supposed Defendants by developer Plaintiffs. Similarly, to the LostMessiah suit, the Plaintiffs are real estate moguls. In the Lakewood case, they filed a defamation lawsuit against a number of local journalists, who they claim defamed them when they exposed alleged Lakewood corruption.

The subject matter in that lawsuit was an article written that it would appear claimed that in order to proceed with their development plans, the developers needed to change the zoning designations of properties on which they wished to build. To do so, the writers of the article maintained that municipal officials and local power players received what may be appropriately referred to as bribes. The journalists and others wholly unrelated to them are now facing a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence them by burdening them with the cost of an unfounded legal defense. Similar to the LostMessiah lawsuit, the Defendants are caught in the wide net cast by the Plaintiffs.

The lawsuit seeks an abandonment of any criticism or opposition to the zoning changes by the Plaintiff developers and it chills the speech of others who might pursue similar articles or even judicial intervention.

The ongoing lawsuits filed against Arthur Goldberg, the founder of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing) is yet another example of using the Court system as a tool for overcoming the First Amendment not protecting it. In 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and allied law firms sued Goldberg under the New Jersey consumer fraud statute on the erroneous theory that sexual orientation/behavior could never be changed. Goldberg and his organization provided resources for those who freely chose to seek help with gay/lesbian and transgender issues. Nevertheless, after drawn-out court proceedings, the New Jersey Superior Court ordered JONAH to close and to liquidate its assets by June, 2016.

One would think that this bullying would be enough for these misguided advocates. However, in 2019, after Goldberg helped form a Noahide organization, the Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA) to educate citizenry about the universal moral values of the Noahide Code, the same plaintiffs sued again. This time the same judge found that JIFGA was simply an “alter ego” of JONAH. This holding was in spite of the vastly differing mission statements and activities between the two organizations.

In his ruling the ordered all JIFGA’s activities (including a unique crowd-funding site—Funding Morality—established to raise funds for causes consistent with Biblical principles) to be shut down. The case is now on appeal to the state’s Appellate Division.

In all of these cases, the likely intended consequence of the fear of being sued for our community is the erosion of our right to freely speak our minds, a guarantee provided in our Constitution. Without the right to speak absent fear we will lose the ability to defend more than just our right to speech and press, but also our religious rights, our rights to redress, and ultimately other fundamental human rights.

Bullying, manipulation of the courts, the judicial system and the government by those who find fault with the courageous will ultimately have a direct impact upon us all. We will wake up one morning to find that we are wholly unprotected.

Avraham Sharaby is a leading activist & educator in the Lakewood, NJ Orthodox community