Lawyer suing to display a photo of herself holding a gun in front of an Israeli flag
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.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30