{"id":136917,"date":"2026-02-18T01:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/136917\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:41:18","slug":"new-york-citys-synagogue-protest-bill-is-the-first-jewish-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/136917\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s Synagogue Protest Bill is the First Jewish Showdown\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York City Council hearing slated for next Wednesday marks the formal start of Council Speaker Julie Menin\u2019s push<\/a> for a law<\/a> that would allow police to restrict protests outside of city synagogues and other houses of worship.<\/p>\n

The question of how the city should respond to synagogue protests promises to be the first major Mamdani-era legislative showdown over questions of Israel, antisemitism, and Jewish safety\u2014the same issues that inflamed the mayoral election last fall. It\u2019s an early test of the respective influence in Menin\u2019s Council of the city\u2019s ascendant Jewish left, which generally opposes the bill, and the centrist and right-wing Jewish groups, which support<\/a> it.<\/p>\n

Menin\u2019s proposal directs the New York Police Department to implement a plan to address \u201cinterference\u201d or \u201cintimidation\u201d outside religious sites, and would allow law enforcement to establish barriers up to 100 feet from a house of worship. It comes after two recent demonstrations outside city synagogues: one<\/a> at a synagogue hosting an event promoting property sales in Israel and a West Bank settlement, the other<\/a> at a synagogue hosting a group that supports immigration to Israel and the West Bank. Protesters outside one event chanted<\/a>, \u201cWe support Hamas here,\u201d which city and state officials described<\/a> as antisemitic.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani himself has yet to come out with a position on Menin\u2019s bill. Early this year, he ordered<\/a> the city\u2019s law department and the NYPD to review the legality of proposals to restrict protests outside houses of worship. That review appears to still be underway.<\/p>\n

Progressive Jewish organizations and civil liberties experts have criticized<\/a> Menin\u2019s proposed 100-foot barriers as potentially unconstitutional. \u201cIt\u2019s baffling to me that anyone would seek to further empower law enforcement to crack down on protests,\u201d said Sophie Ellman-Golan, the director of strategic communications for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. <\/p>\n

The criticism may be getting through to the speaker: On Friday, Menin told<\/a> the publication City & State that she was working to amend the bill, which she insisted \u201cdoesn\u2019t restrict anyone\u2019s right to free speech.\u201d An NYPD spokesperson told the outlet that police Commissioner Jessica Tisch herself has concerns about the bill, and that Tisch was \u201cworking closely with the speaker\u2019s office\u201d to ensure \u201cthe NYPD\u2019s flexibility to both protect houses of worship and facilitate First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Jewish groups, meanwhile, have supported the bill. Menin\u2019s January announcement of her \u201cplan to combat antisemitism\u201d\u2014which includes the synagogue protest bill and a proposal for a hotline to report incidents motivated by hate, among other things\u2014came with the endorsement of both the UJA-Federation of New York and the city\u2019s Jewish Community Relations Council. \u201cA buffer zone is necessary in the climate we have today,\u201d Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, told Jewish Currents. <\/p>\n

The bill puts the Council\u2019s large progressive bloc in a difficult spot, squeezed between civil liberties concerns, Jewish institutional support for the bill, and a reluctance to get off on the wrong foot with the Council\u2019s new leader. <\/p>\n

In an interview last week with Jewish Currents, Tiffany Cab\u00e1n, a Democratic Socialists of America-backed Queens councilwoman and one of two co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus, said she was firmly opposed to the Menin bill. \u201cJews are on heightened alert at synagogues because they are being targeted for violence. But I do not believe that this legislation achieves the goal of Jewish safety,\u201d Cab\u00e1n said. \u201cThe NYPD cannot be trusted with the kind of decision making ability that this legislation would give them.\u201d <\/p>\n

But other Progressive Caucus members were more open to the bill. \u201cHaving perimeters to allow people to go in and out of houses of worship makes a lot of sense,\u201d said Manhattan councilman Harvey Epstein, though he suggested that the bill might need to be amended for First Amendment reasons. \u201cWe do have to work on the details of what this says and make sure that we\u2019re not impacting anyone\u2019s freedom of speech or expression.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other progressives have yet to lay out their positions. Opposing this bill risks incurring the wrath of Menin, who as speaker controls what bills come up for a vote and who runs council committees. Members who oppose the bill risk being accused of coddling antisemitism, or of tacitly supporting protesters\u2019 incendiary rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Menin\u2019s synagogue protest bill is the first item on the agenda for the February 25th meeting<\/a> of the council\u2019s Committee to Combat Hate, where it will be voted on before going to the wider council. (A similar bill<\/a> co-sponsored by Menin to restrict demonstrations outside educational institutions is also on the agenda.) If the bill does garner enough votes to pass, it will be a significant headache for Mamdani, who has had to navigate between his own anti-Zionist politics and a pro-Israel Jewish establishment that still wields significant influence in the city. It will be up to Mamdani\u2019s allies in the Progressive Caucus to build a large enough coalition to keep the bill off his desk. <\/p>\n

Cab\u00e1n said her progressive colleagues are approaching the issue with a desire to increase the safety of Jews in the city and preserve core democratic norms. \u201cWe were elected into office to do hard things and to navigate these things with principle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New York City Council hearing slated for next Wednesday marks the formal start of Council Speaker Julie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-136917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}