Supervisors at the Cook County Public Defender’s Office told attorney Debra Gassman that she could not display this photo of herself in her office. It was taken when she volunteered from the Israel Defense Forces in 2002. Courtesy of Debra Gassman

By Lauren Markoe February 16, 2024

The photo, which Debra Gassman says has hung on her office wall for more than 20 years, shows her smiling in front of an Israeli flag, a long gun slung across her body.

After Oct. 7, Gassman moved the photo to a common area at the courthouse in Skokie, Illinois, where she works as a public defender, to show solidarity with Israel after Hamas’ attack. Now that photo, taken when she volunteered in the Israel Defense Forces 22 years ago, is at the center of a federal lawsuit. 

Gassman is suing the public defender’s office, under the First Amendment right to free speech, to “prominently” display it in her office.

​​According to the suit, filed Wednesday, the photo had not been a problem before Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel.

Gassman, who is Jewish and who had volunteered for the IDF when Iraq threatened to attack Israel during the Gulf War, became upset in the days after Oct. 7 that co-workers did not seem to care about the victims of Hamas’ attack, according to the suit.

“To raise awareness of what occurred in Israel, she displayed the photograph to her co-workers by putting it on the employee mailbox where other employees were allowed to put photos and decorations,” it states. 

Gassman removed the photo from the common area when asked by a supervisor, and brought it back to her office. Her supervisors confiscated it, but later returned it, informing her that she could display it in her office if it were not visible from the entryway, according to the suit, which also states that managers had compared displaying the photo to displaying a “Nazi swastika.” 

The Cook County public defender’s office said in a statement that it responded to an employee’s complaint about the photo “by requesting the employee who posted the picture of herself holding a firearm remove that picture from the common area.” It added that Gassman complied, was not disciplined, and that the photo “has reportedly been displayed in her office since.”

Gassman is not seeking monetary damages, and hopes to resolve the dispute before it goes before a judge, her attorney, David Fish told ABC 7 in Chicago.

This story has been updated.

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