The Jewish community in Nashville, Tennessee, is suing a neo-Nazi group after one of its members unlawfully entered the Gordon Jewish Community Center in an alleged attempt to intimidate local Jews. The lawsuit targets the neo-Nazi organization known as the Goyim Defense League (GDL), its leaders, and several members, including Travis Keith Garland.
Garland, identified as a GDL member, pleaded guilty on November 5 to charges of civil intimidation, trespassing and assault connected to his attempt to cross the community center's reception desk while in disguise in January 2025. This is the second lawsuit this year filed by Nashville attorneys against the GDL and its affiliates.
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Neo-Nazi Keith Garland posing as a rabbi to enter Nashvile Jewish center
(Photo: Nashville police)
“Using fear and harassment to threaten and intimidate groups is a despicable act that cannot be tolerated in a multicultural society,” said Scott McCoy, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys and the deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “As with our first lawsuit, we seek to hold accountable the bad actors who conspired with hate and division.”
The lawsuit accuses the group of fraud, trespassing and violating the federal Ku Klux Klan Act, a law designed to protect civil rights from hate-based conspiracies. The Klan Act has been invoked in recent years against a range of antisemitic and white supremacist organizations.
According to the complaint, on January 5, Garland drove from Maryville to Nashville, dressed as an Orthodox Jew, and visited the Holocaust memorial at the Gordon JCC. He filmed himself mocking Holocaust victims, desecrating religious items, and making threatening gestures.
On January 13, 2025, Garland returned to the center in disguise, entered the building, and approached the reception desk, repeatedly demanding to speak with a rabbi while live-streaming the encounter. He was later arrested.
The Tennessean reported this was not the GDL’s first activity in Nashville. In July 2024, the group displayed swastika flags, shouted slurs, and harassed pedestrians in downtown Nashville. Garland was also present at that incident.