I lead the Israeli-American Civic Action Network. For years, my work has focused on antisemitism, Holocaust distortion, civic advocacy, and the U.S.-Israel alliance. Before ICAN, I served for a decade as Political Officer at the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles. That work brought me into direct engagement with Lithuania when ICAN helped internationalize the Jonas Noreika case and pressed policymakers in Washington over Lithuania’s continued honoring of a figure tied to the destruction of Jewish life. This is not a new concern for me. It is an old one that should never have been allowed to fade.

We should never have looked away.

We looked away because Lithuania is a NATO ally on a dangerous frontier. We looked away because Russia is real, deterrence matters, and alliance politics rewards convenience. But strategic convenience does not disinfect institutional deceit. It does not turn protected myth into truth. And it does not excuse a state that wants Western military solidarity while refusing Western standards when its historical narrative is challenged.

The case of Artur Fridman forces that issue back into view. As publicly reported, Lithuanian prosecutors brought criminal charges against a Jewish citizen over a Facebook post discussing Holocaust-era history. The prosecution, according to the published account, leans on the conclusions of a state historical institution while the indictment itself cites archival material that partially corroborates the historical question Fridman raised. That is not a technical contradiction. It is the structure of the case.

On 3/15/26 I sent a formal letter to the Lithuanian consul general in Los Angeles demanding answers. I asked what laws and legal theories are being used against Fridman, what penalty exposure he faces, whether he has had full access to counsel and evidence, whether state institutions such as the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre were used or consulted, whether criticism of Jonas Noreika or other state-honored figures is treated as protected historical discourse, and whether Lithuania will state its present position on honors for Noreika and Juozas Brazaitis. That letter is now public, because this is not a private irritation. It is a public test of credibility.

Lithuania did not place only Artur Fridman on trial. It placed its courts on trial as well.

That distinction matters. A bad prosecution can be explained away as zeal, error, or overreach. A bad judiciary cannot. Once courts become the place where politically useful myths are protected from factual testing, the problem is no longer one prosecutor or one case file. The problem is structural. It is a judiciary that preserves the appearance of law while disabling the function of law exactly where the state is most vulnerable.

The prosecution is already evidence of that danger. A liberal state does not use criminal process against historical speech touching Holocaust memory unless it has already crossed a line internally. It has already decided that archives are dangerous, dissent is destabilizing, and narrative control matters more than open inquiry. The filing is not neutral. It is an institutional declaration.

What makes the case worse is the shelter such a prosecution requires. The method is simple. When official historical findings are challenged, they become too academic, too informational, too technical, too procedural, too non-binding to face meaningful judicial review. The merits recede. Standing evaporates. Jurisdiction narrows. The archive never gets tested where it matters. But when the same state narrative is contradicted by a citizen, it suddenly becomes weighty enough to support criminal exposure.

That is the shell game.

A historical claim too weightless to be judged becomes weighty enough to punish.

That is not law. It is protection dressed up as law.

The broader record on Lithuania’s judiciary makes concern about institutional integrity impossible to dismiss as fantasy. In 2019, Lithuanian authorities detained 26 people, including eight judges, in a major anti-corruption probe. The European Commission’s 2025 Rule of Law Report also said Lithuania had made only “some further progress” on judicial-appointment transparency and urged it to step up efforts, notably with respect to appointments to the Supreme Court. That does not prove every judge is compromised. It proves that concern about judicial integrity is grounded in public record, not paranoia.

But bribery is not the heart of the problem here.

The deeper problem is corruption of function.

A judge can take no bribe at all and still serve political distortion. That judge need only avoid the merits where the merits threaten the state. That judge need only classify an official historical position as outside meaningful review. That judge need only preserve procedure while preventing adjudication. The maneuver sounds dry because bureaucratic evasion always does. Its effect is not dry at all. It is the mechanism by which mythology survives under judicial cover.

This is why the Fridman case matters beyond Fridman. If official Holocaust-era narratives are insulated from real factual testing when challenged, but citizens can still face criminal exposure for contradicting them, then the judiciary is not functioning as a court of law. It is functioning as a one-way membrane. State narrative passes outward. Challenge does not pass inward. Immune when challenged. Punitive when enforced.

And once a country reaches that point, the verdict no longer rescues the system.

If Fridman is convicted, Lithuania confirms that it is willing to criminalize historical dissent touching Holocaust memory.

If he is acquitted, Lithuania confirms that it was still willing to try.

If the case is withdrawn, Lithuania confirms that the machinery was nevertheless built, activated, and ready for use.

None of those outcomes restores credibility. The indictment exists. The prosecutorial decision exists. The contradiction exists in plain view.

This is where the issue stops being merely Lithuanian and becomes American.

Lithuania’s weak point is not hard to identify. It is dependence on allied confidence, especially American confidence, for deterrence, legitimacy, and political cover within NATO. Lithuania wants the shield of the alliance. Fair enough. But NATO is not a charity for states that want Western protection while carrying protected falsehoods at the center of their civic identity. Alliances are not held together by geography alone. They are held together by trust.

So Congress should ask the question directly: what exactly are we defending in Lithuania?

What does “shared democratic values” mean if historical truth is insulated from challenge when it flatters the state, but criminalized when it embarrasses the state?

What does rule of law mean if official historical doctrine is too delicate for adversarial testing yet sturdy enough to help justify prosecution?

What does alliance solidarity mean if a NATO member can use criminal process against a Jewish citizen over Holocaust-era speech and still expect the United States to speak as though nothing serious has happened?

I will raise that question in every meeting I have with congressional leadership. I will bring the Fridman case, the Noreika record, the public letter I sent this week, and the larger pattern they reveal. EU and NATO member states should not be allowed to recite democratic values abroad while hollowing them out at home. If those values mean anything, they must apply most where a state most wants exemption.

We should never have looked away.

We should not have let the Noreika issue fade into diplomatic convenience. We should not have accepted gestures where institutional change was required. We should not have assumed that a state eager for Western security alignment had therefore embraced Western historical accountability.

And that is why this case matters now.

Artur Fridman may yet walk free. That will not end the matter. Lithuania’s courts are already in the dock. Whatever the verdict, Lithuania has already convicted itself as a state that protects myth by punishing challenge.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)