Delray Beach, FL – An appeals court gave a Jewish woman a second chance to fight Jews for J. missionary group.
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Edith Rapp, a Delray Beach resident, filed the $1 million lawsuit against Jews for J. at the end of last year. She claimed that at the behest of her stepson, Bruce Rapp, the organization published a false announcement in its newsletter claiming that she had tearfully accepted the beliefs of the organization as her husband – Bruce’s father – lay dying a few weeks earlier.
The lawsuit was filed, as Jewish organizations were waging a two-week campaign in Palm Beach County against out-of-town Jews for J. missionaries. Edith Rapp said that she only filed the defamation lawsuit after her letters to the group asking for a retraction and an apology went unanswered.
At first Florida Circuit Court Judge Catherine Brunson dismissed the case on the grounds that it was not defamatory to call someone a believer in J. or a X-ian. The lawyers for the San Francisco-based group had argued that labeling someone a believer in their group is not defaming because it is not offensive to a reasonable person.
Now an appeals court is giving her a second chance in her lawsuit, alleging defamation of character when they wrongly identified her as their follower.
The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that she could pursue the defamation lawsuit.
here they need to make a clear distinction. The average person would not be offended because the average person is not a Jew.
It is absolutely unacceptable for a group — especially a cult — to claim that someone is a member without their explicit permission. The fact that the claim was advertised in the cult’s newsletter is a crime. The only thing that would be similar is the Mormon Church Cult that baptises Yiddishe nifterim and claim that they are members of their cult, r”l. All these cults must be stopped ! We must demand it !!!
Can’t they rely on the precedent that they used to go after the Mormon’s baptizing dead Jews into their religion and how that was mostly shut down after wards?
1 million is NOT enough
Us jews should sue the organization for writing such an idiot was accepted in the jewish field
To falsely publish that a person is an apostate to his/her religion is definitely defamation in the person’s own religious community. And for a judge, who receives her/his paycheck from the government, to rule that this is not defamatory is a violation of a person’s first ammendment right to “the free exercise [of religion].”