A Jewish neighborhood heart in Nashville has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in opposition to the neo-Nazi group Goyim Protection League and a number of other of its leaders and associates, accusing them of orchestrating a marketing campaign of antisemitic intimidation, harassment and trespass geared toward terrorizing the town’s Jewish neighborhood.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Regulation Middle on behalf of the Gordon Jewish Group Middle, a 120-year-old nonprofit that serves as a significant hub for Jewish life in Nashville. The criticism names the Goyim Protection League, its founder and chief Jon Minadeo II, extremist streamer Paul Miller, who’s also referred to as GypsyCrusader, and a number of other associates.
On the heart of the case is a January 2025 incident during which Travis Garland, a Tennessee man affiliated with the Goyim Protection League, allegedly disguised himself as an Orthodox Jewish man and infiltrated the Jewish heart’s secured campus. In accordance with the lawsuit, Garland livestreamed the intrusion, mocked Jewish customs and the Holocaust, and refused repeated requests to go away earlier than being forcibly escorted off the property by a safety guard.
Garland was later arrested and pleaded responsible in state court docket to trespassing on the Jewish heart, receiving a sentence of almost a 12 months in jail, in line with Nashville tv station WTVF.
The criticism alleges Garland acted as a part of a coordinated effort, receiving steering and encouragement from Miller and others who adopted the incident in actual time by way of video chat and later promoted it on-line as a “stunt.”
“Utilizing worry and harassment to threaten and intimidate teams is a despicable act that can’t be tolerated in a multicultural society,” Scott McCoy, the Southern Poverty Regulation Middle’s deputy authorized director, mentioned in an announcement. “That is the second lawsuit the SPLC has introduced in opposition to the Goyim Protection League for his or her actions focusing on Nashville’s Black and Jewish communities.”
The lawsuit additionally ties the January incident to a broader marketing campaign by the Goyim Protection League throughout a 10-day go to to Nashville in the summertime of 2024, when members of the group allegedly harassed Jewish and Black residents, assaulted a Jewish man and a biracial man, and intimidated Black kids downtown whereas waving swastika flags. The SPLC beforehand filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of a biracial man who was assaulted throughout that tour.
In accordance with the lawsuit, the Jewish heart has spent roughly $75,000 on further safety within the wake of the incidents and says employees and members have altered how they use the campus due to heightened worry.
The lawsuit comes because the Goyim Protection League has confronted mounting strain on-line and in court docket. Following a current investigation by Nashville tv station WTVF, web sites operated by Minadeo had been taken offline by their area registrar, and a number of other of his accounts had been suspended from X. Different Goyim Protection League members have been convicted or indicted in reference to violent incidents throughout the group’s 2024 go to to Nashville, in line with native reporting.
The go well with invokes the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and different federal civil rights statutes and seeks court docket safety in addition to monetary compensation and punitive damages.
“This lawsuit demonstrates the Nashville Jewish neighborhood’s resolve to face agency within the face of antisemitic intimidation and to carry accountable those that perpetrate it,” mentioned Ben Raybin, an lawyer for the Jewish heart.
For a time, the Goyim Protection League was among the many most prolific distributors of antisemitic propaganda in america, with members spreading flyers in Jewish neighborhoods and different public areas. Whereas the group’s on-line attain seems to have diminished extra not too long ago, Nashville has remained a focus of its exercise.
