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Free Speech

Jewish Community Center's Lawsuit Against "Goyim Defense League" Can Go Forward

Eugene Volokh | 9.30.2026 10:50 AM

From Gordon Jewish Community Center v. Goyim Defense League, decided Wednesday by Judge Aleta Trauger (M.D. Tenn.):

The following factual allegations are taken from the Complaint and are accepted as true at the pleading stage. The Gordon Jewish Community Center ("GJCC") is a registered Tennessee nonprofit corporation and "cultural institution that has served as a lynchpin of the Jewish community of Nashville for more than 120 years." GJCC operates a community center on its privately-owned campus in Nashville where it offers a suite of youth, fitness, and senior programming and services.

The Goyim Defense League ("GDL") is alleged to be a "hate-for-profit enterprise" that exploits antisemitism and racism—in combination with harassment, intimidation, provocation, and violence—for monetary gain. GDL is a membership-based network that limits membership to those who share its mission for "declaring war on," "exterminating," and "subjecting Jews and people of color to harassment, intimidation[,] and violence for the purpose of creating 'white nations[.]'" To advance this mission, GDL sponsors hate-based roadshows styled as "Intimidation Tours." {Jon Minadeo II also refers to these tours as "Name the Nose Tours," a derogatory reference to an antisemitic trope regarding the noses of Jewish people that was prominent during Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.} During Intimidation Tours, GDL's members and associates descend on towns with large Jewish and Black communities to harass, intimidate, threaten, and assault them.

GDL commercializes its hatred by operating an online video and streaming platform—Goyim TV—where it publishes GDL-created and branded video footage of its members and followers' acts of harassment, intimidation, and violence. GDL exploits this content to solicit donations from its members and followers who watch footage of these encounters and for the "opportunity to get recognized by GDL leaders and other white supremacists during livestreams." GDL also operates an online store—Goyim Shop—where it sells GDL-branded products promoting the group's racist and antisemitic mission. The merchandise marketed and sold by GDL includes Hitler masks, "swastika soap," and clothing with slogans such as "Gas the Jews With Us" and "Voting Will Not Remove Them."

The money generated from GDL-branded content and merchandise is then used to fund further acts of racist and........

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