Ilhan Omar and Shmuley Boteach Image by Getty/Forward Montage

By Ari Feldman May 3, 2019

A photographer is suing Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s World Values Network for using his photograph of Rep. Ilhan Omar without authorization, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Jason Grow is suing for $150,000 after Boteach’s organization used the photograph in an advertisement in the Washington Post, and also on the GoFundMe page raising money to support the full-page print ad. (The campaign earned $598 dollars.)

The Post reported that Boteach said the picture was taken from Omar’s Facebook page, following Facebook’s rules.

“We first heard of this issue when somebody called our office and shouted at an employee, ‘Who’s the [expletive] I need to sue?’” Boteach reportedly said.

“We wish to make it clear we will not be silenced about Ilhan Omar and her personal war against the Jewish people,” Boteach added. “Those threatening legal action for the proper use of this photo want to stifle the First Amendment rights of a Jewish organization that battles anti-Semitism.”

Boteach then invoked the deaths of Jews in synagogue shootings in talking about the photograph.

Facebook’s copyright policy says that intellectual property shared on Facebook remains the property of the person who created it.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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