Minot, N.D. — One of my favorite stories from American history is about the time the National Socialist Party of America – an offshoot of the American Nazi Party – tried to march in Skokie, Illinois.

That was a largely Jewish community at the time – one out of six Jewish residents there was either a Holocaust survivor or directly related to one – and found the idea of Nazis marching in their streets understandably repugnant.

The city refused to allow the march, the Nazis filed suit and the matter ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ironically, one of the groups defending the Nazis and their right to march was the American Civil Liberties Union. The attorney they assigned to the case? David Goldberger, who is Jewish .

Why would the ACLU, and a Jewish lawyer, defend Nazis? The case for it is twofold, I believe.

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