Final 12 months on this vacation, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld went to the Israeli embassy in Washington to supply prayers for the discharge of hostages who had been held by Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.

When Herzfeld arrived on the embassy, he was confronted by a gaggle of anti-Israel protesters who had been demonstrating exterior the embassy for months. When Herzfeld started to wish, he was subjected to a sound assault that was personally ordered by the chief of the protesters, who mentioned: “Now it’s time for the sirens.”

The protesters near Herzfeld then blasted their sirens at decibel ranges 1,000 occasions larger than that allowed by D.C. legislation. The protesters additionally taunted Herzfeld, telling him that he and his colleagues “appeared like Nazis”, that they had been “celebrating terror” and requested in the event that they had been “pleased with terrorizing youngsters.”

On Might 1, I filed a lawsuit on behalf of Herzfeld, alleging claims for assault and battery arising from the sound assault, which had precipitated the rabbi acute acoustic trauma. Inside days of the submitting of that swimsuit, two leaders of the anti-Israel protests (together with the one who had mentioned “now it’s time for the sirens”) filed petitions for “anti-stalking” orders towards Herzfeld within the Domestic Violence Division of the D.C. Superior Court.

They alleged that Herzfeld had stalked them partially by showing on the embassy on Taanit Esther (which was March 21 final 12 months) and partially by coming to the embassy on two subsequent events once they claimed that Herzfeld knew that the anti-Israel protesters can be current.

Underneath D.C.’s Anti-Stalking Regulation, Herzfeld was instantly topic to a short lived anti-stalking orders (TASOs) till the petitions might be resolved. The TASOs prohibited Herzfeld from partaking in numerous actions in sure sections of Washington, together with the neighborhood surrounding his personal yeshiva.

These “anti-stalking” petitions and the TASOs precipitated Herzfeld appreciable misery.

The Home Violence Division of the D.C. Superior Court docket, as its title implies, handles critical issues involving threats to the security of (principally) ladies who’re being threatened by husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends or actual stalkers. The act of stalking is against the law underneath D.C. legislation, so judges in that courtroom are understandably fairly cautious to make it possible for the individuals looking for the courtroom’s assist get it.

As a consequence, the decide assigned to the petitions towards Herzfeld, Decide John McCabe, was unwilling to dismiss the case in response to our movement to dismiss, wherein we argued that Herzfeld’s visits to the embassy and his prayers and statements had been all constitutionally-protected exercise and couldn’t represent stalking.

As a way to totally perceive the matter, the courtroom held a three-day trial final summer season. On the finish of the trial, the decide dismissed the anti-stalking petitions, holding that Herzfeld’s actions had been all constitutionally protected underneath the First Modification and that there had been no act of stalking.

On Feb. 18, McCabe issued a second order, this one concluding that the petitions looking for anti-stalking orders towards Herzfeld had been “frivolous” and had been filed in “unhealthy religion” as a result of “the submitting and sustaining of the petitions in these two circumstances was introduced for ‘coercive functions’ — to intrude with [Herzfeld’s] constitutionally protected proper to go to the location of protests on the Israeli Embassy.”

McCabe then granted Herzfeld’s request that the courtroom order the 2 protest leaders who had filed the petitions towards Herzfeld to pay the sum of $181,526 in attorneys’ charges and prices. The courtroom held that not one of the incidents set forth within the petitions “comes near stating a foundation that [Herzfeld] dedicated the crime of stalking. The Petitioners are skilled protesters and had been very a lot conscious that the actions that [Herzfeld] on the embassy had been constitutionally protected.”

In its ruling, the courtroom relied on a particular statute referred to as the Anti-SLAPP Act, which is designed to discourage using frivolous authorized proceedings to stop residents from exercising their constitutional rights.

The lesson to remove from this, is that it doesn’t matter what instruments the haters of Israel use to cease Jews from supporting Israel, the American authorized system will shield us. We’ve the constitutional proper to specific our help for Israel and to face with Israel. Don’t let anybody inform you in any other case.

Lieberman is a accomplice on the Washington law firm of Rothwell Figg.