Lawyer suing to display a photo of herself holding a gun in front of an Israeli flag

Debra Gassman, an attorney in a Chicago area public defender’s office, was told to take the photo down

Supervisors at the Cook County Public Defender’s Office told attorney Debra Gassman that she could not display this photo of herself in her office. It was taken when she volunteered from the Israel Defense Forces in 2002. Courtesy of Debra Gassman

By Lauren Markoe February 16, 2024

The photo, which Debra Gassman says has hung on her office wall for more than 20 years, shows her smiling in front of an Israeli flag, a long gun slung across her body.

After Oct. 7, Gassman moved the photo to a common area at the courthouse in Skokie, Illinois, where she works as a public defender, to show solidarity with Israel after Hamas’ attack. Now that photo, taken when she volunteered in the Israel Defense Forces 22 years ago, is at the center of a federal lawsuit.

Gassman is suing the public defender’s office, under the First Amendment right to free speech, to “prominently” display it in her office.

According to the suit, filed Wednesday, the photo had not been a problem before Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel.

Gassman, who is Jewish and who had volunteered for the IDF when Iraq threatened to attack Israel during the Gulf War, became upset in the days after Oct. 7 that co-workers did not seem to care about the victims of Hamas’ attack, according to the suit.

“To raise awareness of what occurred in Israel, she displayed the photograph to her co-workers by putting it on the employee mailbox where other employees were allowed to put photos and decorations,” it states.

Gassman removed the photo from the common area when asked by a supervisor, and brought it back to her office. Her supervisors confiscated it, but later returned it, informing her that she could display it in her office if it were not visible from the entryway, according to the suit, which also states that managers had compared displaying the photo to displaying a “Nazi swastika.”

The Cook County public defender’s office said in a statement that it responded to an employee’s complaint about the photo “by requesting the employee who posted the picture of herself holding a firearm remove that picture from the common area.” It added that Gassman complied, was not disciplined, and that the photo “has reportedly been displayed in her office since.”

Gassman is not seeking monetary damages, and hopes to resolve the dispute before it goes before a judge, her attorney, David Fish told ABC 7 in Chicago.

This story has been updated.

Lauren Markoe is news editor of the Forward. A Bronx native, she reported for The Patriot Ledger, several McClatchy newspapers in the South, and Religion News Service, where she was also managing editor. She also produced live radio shows at WAMU in Washington, D.C., where she lives.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO