By Hon. Rory Lancman, Director of Corporate Initiatives & Senior Counsel The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
There is a simple proposition that should not require argument in a pluralistic democracy: Jews attending synagogue—whether for prayer, study, community programming, or even an Israeli real‑estate presentation—should not have to run a gauntlet of anti‑Semitic abuse to walk through their own doors. Yet across the country—in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, and even here in Nashville—Jews have faced the same hostility, whether wrapped in anti‑Israel rhetoric or, as we’ve seen locally, stripped of any pretense and expressed as straightforward, old‑fashioned antisemitism.
Protesters who claim to oppose Israeli policies increasingly bring their demonstrations not to consulates or public squares, but to synagogue entrances. They shout anti‑Israel slogans and explicitly anti‑Jewish slurs. They block doors, intimidate congregants, and create an atmosphere of menace that no other religious community in America is expected to endure. They do it because they understand that for Jews, the connection between Israel and Jewish identity is lived reality.
This is not protest. It is targeted harassment at houses of worship.
At Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck, New Jersey, protesters chanted “From the river to the sea” and “Globalize the Intifada,” while attendees were called “baby killers” and “Zionist pigs.” At Adas Torah in Los Angeles, masked demonstrators blocked entrances, confronted attendees, and forced some congregants to use side doors while others were turned away entirely. At Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey, protesters shouted, “Globalize the Intifada” and accused attendees of “genocide,” targeting what the Department of Justice later described as “a religious event centered on the Jewish obligation to live in the Land of Israel.” The pattern continued at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, where demonstrators shouted, “We need to make them scared,” “Death to the I.D.F.,” and even “We support Hamas.”
Nashville has seen this in its own stark form—antisemitism with no political veneer at all. In 2024–2025, the neo‑Nazi Goyim Defense League targeted Jewish neighborhoods, synagogues, and the Gordon Jewish Community Center with a harassment campaign that included swastika flags, shouted slurs, and hate flyers. One GDL member even infiltrated the secured campus disguised as an Orthodox Jew and livestreamed antisemitic taunts inside the building before being removed. This was not protest. It was a deliberate campaign of intimidation against Jewish life in Nashville.
These are not isolated incidents. They are a coordinated strategy: bring the fight to synagogues, intimidate Jews where they pray, and collapse the distinction between Jewish identity and political grievance.
Some might think the First Amendment protects this conduct. It does not.
The First Amendment protects speech—even ugly, offensive speech. But it does not protect blocking entrances, surrounding worshippers, physically interfering with religious practice, or intimidating congregants at a house of worship.
Congress understood this when it passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), which makes it a federal crime to “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with anyone seeking to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom “at a place of religious worship.” Protesters who block synagogue doors or menace congregants are not engaging in protected speech. They are violating federal law.
But having the law is not enough. Jewish institutions must arm themselves with an understanding of how the law works in practice—and how protesters try to evade responsibility.
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That means documenting conduct meticulously; training staff to recognize when behavior crosses the line into unlawful obstruction; coordinating proactively with law enforcement; understanding the FACE Act; designing event logistics to minimize interference; and insisting that synagogue entrances be treated like the entrances to any other house of worship.
Jewish institutions cannot control who shows up outside their doors. But they can control how prepared they are to ensure that those who cross legal lines are held accountable.
I delivered this message to the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville, whose leadership understands that protecting Jewish life today requires not only moral clarity but legal literacy.
Jews attending synagogue—for prayer, for study, for community, for aliyah events, for real‑estate presentations, for any reason—should not have to run a gauntlet of anti‑Semitic abuse. They should not have to choose between their safety and their religious life. And they should not be forced to accept intimidation as the price of being visibly Jewish.
The law is on our side. The facts are on our side. The moral clarity is on our side.
Our institutions, in partnership with law enforcement and our communal civil‑rights organizations, must act affirmatively to defend Jewish life in this country.
