Geoffrey Fisher, managing editor of the San Francisco Jewish Bulletin, said he had been served with a notice of a suit for damages totaling $28 million filed in federal district court by the local National Socialist White People’s Party.
Fisher said the suit grew out of the destruction last April of a Rudolph Hess bookstore set up by the Nazi Party opposite a synagogue. The building in which the store was opened is owned by a Jew, Nathan Green, who said he had not known at the time that the renters were Nazis who intended to open a Nazi bookstore.
Fisher told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was charged in the suit with defamation of the Nazi group, based on editorials he had written about the party in connection with the bookstore. He said the Nazis also were seeking damages from James Ruderman, director of the northern California regional office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith; and Joel Brooks, director of the regional American Jewish Congress office here.
The suit also names Mayor George Moscone; Diane Feinstein, a member of the board of supervisors of San Francisco city and county; and Joseph Freitas, the United States Attomey, for alleged failure to protect the Nazi property and to prosecute those who had wrecked the bookstore.
FIRST SUIT OF ITS KIND, LOCALLY
Fisher said that the suit was the first filed by the local Nazis against any of their foes. Two Jews, Martin Weiss, and his san, Allan, happened to be near the bookstore when a crowd dismantled it, and became involved. They were arrested on misdemeanor charges and released. One of the charges of the suit is that the defendants were involved in destruction of private property belonging to the Nazis. The bookstore was not reopened.
The suit seeks general damages of $2 million; punitive damages of $1.5 million; $15 million for threats on the life of the plaintiff, Allen L. Vincent, head of the Nazi group; and the balance for miscellaneous damages. Altogether, 12 defendants are named in the suit, most of them local political figures, Fisher said. He stated that after a consultation with attorneys, it was agreed that he, Ruderman and Brooks would be defended separately from the others.
The subpoena requires an answer within 20 days and May 25 has been set as the date for initial hearings in the District Court here for the Northern District of California.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
