SAN FRANCISCO, CA (MPG) – Liberty Counsel filed a motion in U.S. District Court on behalf of Jews for Jesus to remove from the Superior Court of San Francisco County to federal court a baseless defamation lawsuit brought by an Orthodox Jewish teacher and aspiring rabbi.

The case centers around Jews for Jesus using a royalty-free stock photo of an Israeli soldier on its social media platform to illustrate its distribution of Bibles in the wake of the October 7 attacks. Jews for Jesus included a message from a thankful soldier in the caption and even blurred out the face of the random soldier in the photo. The stock photo was obtained and published by Jews for Jesus from a popular website that provides millions of stock photographs under a worldwide copyright license to download, use, modify and distribute for free, without permission from or attributing its source.

According to the lawsuit, Ariel Amitay alleges he is the man in the blurred, stock photo that was widely available for free download and use worldwide. Even though Jews for Jesus deliberately used a facial blur, never used Amitay’s name, and even used someone else’s name in the photo’s caption, Amitay alleges that Jews for Jesus used the photo to defame him and cast him in a false light, and that this was “willful, malicious, and oppressive.” Amitay, who describes himself as a “conservative follower of Judaism” with “starkly different views” than Jews for Jesus, stated the organization blatantly used the photo to “disgrace, defame, and injure” him by suggesting that he personally endorsed its Christian ministry. Despite the blurred face and never being named, Amitay maintains that the photo created such a false impression of him that it caused his employer to terminate him from his “dream” teaching job.

However, Amitay’s lawsuit fails to provide concrete facts to support his claims. The lawsuit is rife with legal deficiencies. Amitay cannot use the courts to punish or suppress the legitimate speech and religious expression of Jews for Jesus.

Liberty Counsel will ask the court to dismiss these baseless claims.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Simply put, no reasonable reader would interpret Jews for Jesus’ posts as factual assertions about Ariel Amitay. Jews for Jesus’ social media posts were a part of a larger religious expression about giving bibles to Israeli soldiers that did not in any way portray or identify Amitay in support of its religious views. Jews for Jesus’ speech and religious advocacy is protected by the First Amendment and this lawsuit must be dismissed.”