Legal Aid union accused of retaliating against LI members who called out ‘antisemitic’ practices
A Jewish civil rights group is suing the union repping taxpayer-funded Legal Aid lawyers for allegedly retaliating against three members who objected to its antisemitic practices.
The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys initiated proceedings to expel the three Nassau County members — Ilana Kopmar, Diane Clarke and Isaac Altman — after they filed a lawsuit last year to block the union from passing a one-sided pro-Hamas resolution that only condemned Israel for the war.
The union’s hate-filled resolution also supported a boycott movement against Israel — which only invaded Gaza after the Palestinian terror group Hamas launched a sneak massacre on the Jewish state Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly innocent civilians.
Both sides are still at war, with Israel unleashing devastating blows on the Gaza Strip, killing thousands of civilians and displacing hundreds of thousands more as Hamas refuses to surrender.
The union approved the divisive resolution in December, with 1,067 votes in favor to 570 opposed.
The move was condemned by the union’s main employer, the Legal Aid Society, which receives hundreds of millions of dollars in city and state funds to provide free legal services to poor criminal defendants and other needy New Yorkers.
“Anti-Semitism in a union isn’t any less objectionable than anti-Semitism on a college campus, in a public school, or at a workplace,” said Ken Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, whose group Tuesday filed the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against ALAA, Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, and 28 individual union officers and members.
The plaintiffs said the resolution approved by the union and statements and other messages on its internal email boards reeked of Jew-hatred, including “River to the Sea” posts construed as calling for destroying the state of Israel.
The resolution and messages also included support for Hamas that ignored the terror group’s attack; antisemitic tropes such as saying “Jewish donations” caused the Legal Aid Society and other employers to denounced the resolution; claims that Jewish ALAA members have dual loyalty to Israel; questioning of the ability of Jewish lawyers to represent minority clients; and even blaming Israel for police misconduct in the United States.
“Zionism is integral to Jewish identity, but plaintiffs — proud unionists who have dedicated their professional lives to serving poor and disadvantaged clients — didn’t need to be Zionists, or in one case, even Jewish, to understand that anti-Semitism is antithetical both to their obligations as lawyers and to the mission of a union responsible for representing the interests of all its members,” said Rory Lancman, senior counsel at the Brandeis Center and a former Queens councilman.
One anti-Israel union member said in an email of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis, “You keep talking about ‘Jewish babies being murdered,’ and women being raped, you’re simply spreading lies and misinformation. There is no proof or substantiation. There are no pictures…”
Four ALAA members identified as defendants in the lawsuit filed union charges against the plaintiffs, putting in motion the disciplinary proceedings to oust them from the union, the suit said.
That’s brazen retaliation of the plaintiffs’ rights to sue and violations under federal labor law and New York state and New York City anti-discrimination laws, the lawsuit claimed.
The plaintiffs, whose lawyers also include Lieb at Law, called for the court to stop the union from punishing them, as well as unspecified damages.
The UAW Local 2325, Legal Aid Attorneys union, did not respond to a Post request for comment.
