Amid a rise of pro-Palestinian protests outside Israeli real estate events and land sales held in synagogues, New York lawmakers are pushing to ban protests directly outside houses of worship.
The latest proposal comes from Gov. Kathy Hochul, who announced new legislation in her State of the State address Tuesday afternoon. The legislation would create a 25-foot buffer zone around houses of worship and healthcare facilities.
“In 2026 we’ll take steps to protect our houses of worship against the rising tide of antisemitism and Islamophobia,” Hochul said in her address, pointing to protesters’ pro-Hamas chants outside a Queens synagogue last week.
“Targeting a Jewish community this way is antisemitic, and that’s why I’m proposing a ban on these protests,” she said. “And I’ll respect people’s right to protest any day of the week — but not within 25 feet of the property line at houses of worship.”
Hochul’s push appears likely to have readymade supporters in New York City, where a November protest outside Park East Synagogue fueled calls for change. Jewish State Assembly members Micah Lasher and Sam Sutton, both Democrats, proposed a bill creating buffer zones in early December, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote an executive order in January directing the NYPD to better regulate protests outside houses of worship.
Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, issued a statement Tuesday saying he “strongly applauds” Hochul’s support for buffer zone legislation.
But while there appears to be broad support for the buffer zones in New York, their path to implementation could be rocky. The State Assembly and Senate are set to embark on a potentially months-long negotiation process in which lawmakers will weigh the benefits of constraining protests against the costs, including the potential impact on free speech.
“It might become really contentious when the whole range of secular and faith organizations weigh in,” said Phylisa Wisdom, director of the liberal group New York Jewish Agenda. “I think we’re about to enter that conversation.”
It’s a debate that isn’t unique to New York: Lawmakers are pushing a similar bill in Canada, where synagogues have been the site of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. But unlike in New York, where elected officials across the political spectrum have been largely receptive to the idea, the Canadian bill has faced resistance from both pro-Palestinian groups and pro-Israel Jewish conservatives.
One of the country’s most prominent Jewish lawmakers, Conservative Melissa Lantsman, recently wrote that the Canadian bill “criminalizes free speech” and creates “an opening for the law to be used against the very communities it’s supposed to protect.”
Bill C-9, also known as the Combatting Hate Act, does not create formal buffer zones, but would add new offenses to the federal Criminal Code, making it a crime “to intimidate and obstruct people from accessing places of worship, as well as schools, community centres and other places primarily used by an identifiable group.” It would also become a criminal offense to “willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group by displaying certain terrorism or hate symbols in public.”
National Jewish organizations such as B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs are advocating for the bill, which is currently being examined by committees in the House of Commons.
“We as Canadians need our Criminal Code to be as robust as possible,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of research and advocacy, in an interview. “We need to ensure that law enforcement has the tools they require to hold accountable those who are propagating hate on our streets.”
A couple of weeks after it was introduced, Bill C-9 was rebuked in an open letter from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. The letter had signatures from more than 40 groups, including three Jewish ones that all express a pro-Palestinian viewpoint.
Those three organizations, plus two other Jewish groups, wrote their own letter, which was pointed in its criticism of how Bill C-9 would infringe on freedom of expression: by wrongly criminalizing protests against events like real estate sales for Israeli West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.
“Bill C-9 would limit opportunities for congregants to object to the policies or decisions of their religious leadership or institutions,” the letter reads. West Bank land sales, it continues, are “a legitimate reason to protest regardless of which kind of building is hosting the illegal sale.”
Progressive groups in New York have not written an equivalent letter on the proposed legislation — but the criticism is shared by left-wing organization Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
“JFREJ does not support legislation designed to curtail protest,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“It’s understandable that the image of people protesting outside a synagogue can spark discomfort and even real fear — and people should be able to pray and observe religious holidays without fear of harassment — but houses of worship make a choice when they host non-religious political events, and that choice includes the knowledge that they might be protested for doing so,” the statement reads.
JFREJ’s email also pointed to groups such as NYC for Abortion Rights, which it said should be able to continue their practice of protesting outside a church that “serves as a gathering place for anti-choice bigots who then march to harass people at a nearby clinic.”
Criticism of West Bank real estate events returned to the fore last week after protesters chanted “We support Hamas here” outside a Queens synagogue, drawing widespread condemnation from elected officials.
Left-wing Jewish groups Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and the American Council for Judaism wrote a joint Instagram post criticizing elected officials and Jewish institutions for condemning protesters, and not the real estate event itself. In November, after the Park East protest, Mamdani reiterated his vow to keep all New Yorkers safe but added that “sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
Julie Fishman Rayman, the American Jewish Committee’s senior vice president of policy and political affairs, pointed out in an interview that federal legislation protecting houses of worship from protest — the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act — does already exist. But the FACE Act, primarily intended to protect abortion clinics, is limited, she said, because it is “only interpreted to protect those going to pray,” and not other community events like the Nefesh b’Nefesh Israeli immigration event that drew protesters outside Park East.
“So I think looking at what Canada and other countries are doing is a great place to start, but we also need to be examining, what are the laws on the books?” Fishman Rayman said. “And then certainly welcoming actions like what Gov. Hochul is expected to be doing, in terms of saying, ‘How can we better protect communities?’”
Fishman Rayman said AJC is “certainly supportive of the concept” of Hochul’s legislation.
She added, “Then it becomes a calculus for organizations and policymakers to say, ‘How are we making sure we’re balancing the needs of those who want to worship or go into a synagogue or church or mosque, with the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, all of that.”
In addition to pro-Palestinian groups, pushback has also come from civil liberties groups concerned about freedom of speech. In an email to JTA, a legal expert warned that Lasher and Sutton’s legislation should be designed cautiously.
“Legislation restricting public demonstrations outside of New York’s houses of worship must be narrowly tailored, viewpoint neutral, and tangibly justifiable — if not, it’s very likely to infringe on people’s First Amendment rights,” said Justin Harrison, senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“It’s entirely reasonable to have buffer zones outside of specific, sensitive locations with lengthy histories of misconduct — such as reproductive care clinics — but the law cannot restrict more public expression than is necessary,” Harrison wrote. (Lasher and Sutton’s proposed bill would create buffer zones outside reproductive healthcare facilities, in addition to houses of worship.)
Similar concerns regarding freedom of expression have surfaced about Canada’s Bill C-9 — including from Lantsman, a Jewish member of parliament from the right-wing Conservative Party, who is vocally pro-Israel and advocates against antisemitism. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party leader who lost last year’s federal election and calls himself “a friend of Israel,” has also spoken out against Bill C-9, including at a Toronto synagogue in December.
“Let’s remember who allowed this scourge of antisemitism to fester in the first place: the members of Canada’s Liberal government who, at each opportunity, have looked the other way as hate rises,” Lantsman wrote in an email to JTA, referring to the Liberal Party government which introduced Bill C-9.
Lantsman argued in a blog post that the bill is vague in its definition of “hate,” and questioned whether the “terrorism and hate symbols” it targets could be expanded to “anything a future government simply finds distasteful, politically inconvenient, or unpopular.”
She pointed to Bill C-255, proposed by a fellow Conservative politician, as a superior way to tackle the issue by strengthening penalties for mischief against houses of worship.
B’nai Brith Canada submitted recommendations for amendments to Bill C-9 that would alleviate some of the free speech concerns, like restoring the Attorney General’s consent powers for privately prosecuted hate crime charges. But the organization supports the bill in its current form in principle — and according to Robertson, there’s no need to pick between the two bills.
“Both pieces of legislation should be supported and adopted by all members of parliament,” he said.
While there’s been little public opposition to proposals in New York, Wisdom said she expects discourse to heat up once Hochul officially announces the legislation as part of her 2026 Executive Budget.
“Once it’s announced, there will probably be groups that are talking amongst themselves and sharpening their positions on this,” Wisdom said.
Following Hochul’s address on Tuesday, the State Assembly and Senate will begin negotiating things like the exact wording of the legislation and the size of the buffer zones, with the goal of striking a final deal by April 1 — and the legislation could even be thrown out altogether.
While UJA-Federation of New York has supported Lasher and Sutton’s buffer zone proposal, and the JCRC applauded Hochul, there are a number of Jewish organizations that have yet to take a public position. And it remains to be seen whether elected officials push back with free speech concerns, as they have in Canada.
“There is, in this moment, a tension between freedom to worship and the rights to protest,” Fishman Rayman said. “And so finding the right ways to meet this moment and find the right balance are complicated — but are achievable.”
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