Legal group hails breakthrough as US judge equates Israeli flag with Jewish identity

A Jewish legal advocacy group hailed a legal breakthrough in court battles against antisemitism after a US federal judge last week equated the Israeli flag with “the Jewish race.”

The judge’s decision sets a new legal standard that can be used to protect Jews targeted in anti-Zionist attacks, said the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that represented the plaintiff.

Pro-Israel Jewish activist Kimmara Sumrall filed the lawsuit in a federal district court in Washington, DC, last month. Sumrall alleged that she was attacked at a pro-Israel demonstration in Washington in November 2024 while wearing an Israeli flag tied around her neck as a cape.

An anti-Israel activist at the protest approached Sumrall from behind and yanked on the Israeli flag, briefly choking Sumrall. A police officer witnessed the incident and arrested the assailant at the scene, the complaint said.

The anti-Israel protest was organized by Code Pink, a far-left activist group that often demonstrates against Israel. Both the assailant and the pro-Israel activist regularly attended dueling protests in the capital. Sumrall said she had received death threats related to her activism after the attack, causing her to fear for her safety.

The lawsuit argued that the assault was discriminatory, according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

The lawsuit, like others filed by Jewish Israel supporters around the US, argued that Zionism is a facet of the faith and not a political position. Jewish legal advocates have used the interpretation of Zionism to protect pro-Israel Jews and combat anti-Zionism under US civil rights protections that cover religion, race and national origin, but not politics. The argument has been widely used in cases involving Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination in programs that receive federal financial assistance, such as universities.

The lawsuit said Sumrall had been targeted in the attack due to her race, religion and national origin, and sought damages and a restraining order barring the assailant from approaching Sumrall.

Lawyers for the defendant argued that she had been acquitted of assault charges in criminal court. The defense said that the defendant’s keffiyeh had tangled with Sumrall’s flag when the two bumped into each other at the protest, and that there had been no malicious contact between the two. The legal team also argued that the lawsuit was “conflating honest and widespread criticism of Israel’s policies in Palestine with anti-Jewish hate,” and that the incident was not discriminatory.

The restraining order would prevent the alleged assailant from attending protests, violating her First Amendment rights, since both women attend the same events on opposing sides, the defense said.

The judge in the case, District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, sided with Sumrall, saying that the defendant “purposefully discriminated against her on the basis of race” and that she had likely committed battery, citing testimony from the arresting police officer. The officer had declined to testify in criminal court, where assault needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a higher bar than in a civil case.

“That battery was direct evidence of discrimination that likely would not have occurred but for racial animus,” the judge said in a court filing last week.

“Purposefully yanking on an Israeli flag tied around a Jewish person’s neck to choke them is direct evidence of racial discrimination. The Star of David— emblazoned upon the Israeli flag — symbolizes the Jewish race,” the judge said, comparing attacks against the Star of David to using racial slurs against Black people, and dismissing the defense’s argument that such an offense could be “an objection to state policies.”

The defendant “did not have reason to think Sumrall was herself affiliated with the Israeli government. Rather, it is much more likely that she was intentionally attacking a Jewish person wearing a Jewish flag as a symbol of her racial heritage,” the judge said, upholding a restraining order against the defendant.

Matthew Mainen, Sumrall’s lawyer, said the judge’s ruling marked “the strongest language a federal court has come out with yet that anti-Zionism is obviously antisemitism.”

“For him, there was no gray area between it. For him, it was obviously the most racist thing,” Mainen told The Times of Israel. Mainen is a litigation counsel with the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

Mainen said the ruling was significant because it established case law equating attacks against the Star of David and Israeli flag with antisemitism. Case law is formed by judges writing opinions on individual cases that guide legal interpretations in future cases. Case law differs from legal precedents in that precedents are binding, meaning they are rulings that courts must adhere to, while case law serves as a guidepost.

In future lawsuits alleging antisemitism stemming from anti-Israel activism, for example, plaintiffs will be able to cite the Sumrall lawsuit as evidence that there is a legal standard equating anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish discrimination. Mainen said the case would likely be “heavily cited” in the future.

The lawsuit also made novel use of an obscure federal legal provision dating back to the Civil War era aimed at combating racial discrimination. The provision, first enacted as the Civil Rights Act of 1866, guarantees equal rights for all racial groups, and Jews have been recognized by the Supreme Court as a race for purposes of civil rights law. The provision elevates racially motivated assault from state court to federal court.

“If I’m on the street and I hit someone, assault and battery, that’s not really a federal crime. That’s a state crime. But if I’m on the street and I hit someone because of their race, this law federalizes that violent act,” Mainen said. “It allows you to sue in federal court when there’s a hate crime component to it. This case in DC was the first post-October 7th case, and it’s possibly the first ever antisemitism case to use this to apply it to antisemitic violence.”

Code Pink decried the decision in a statement, saying, “The lawsuit’s dangerous claim that criticism of Israel’s government and its flag — a political symbol of a state currently responsible for mass civilian deaths in Gaza — amounts to antisemitism.”

“This false conflation seeks to criminalize political speech, even though many critics of Israel’s policies are themselves Jewish. It is an effort to erase the critical distinction between opposing a government’s actions and attacking a religion,” Code Pink said.

The lawsuit marked another development in the evolving legal battle over antisemitism and anti-Israel activism in US courts. Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian activist groups have filed dozens of lawsuits against their opponents, including universities, nonprofits and individuals.

Some of the tactics deployed by Jewish groups, including the National Jewish Advocacy Center, since the start of the war in Gaza include suing nonprofits that facilitate illegal protests, using a law meant to protect abortion clinics to cover synagogues, and expanding civil rights protections for Jews to new arenas such as sports venues.