US feds investigating New York City synagogue protest

The US Department of Justice says it is investigating a protest outside a New York City synagogue last week.

During the protest, around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, chanting violent and threatening slogans, and hurling discriminatory slurs at Jews.

The protest targeted an event at the synagogue that was providing information to Jews about immigrating to Israel.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, says, “Investigation is underway. The [Justice Department] has zero tolerance for violence/obstruction around any American house of worship.”

“Every time we see violence around a house of worship, we take action,” Dhillon says in a separate statement.

The federal FACE Act prohibits obstructing entrance or exit from a house of worship, including by threats and intimidation.

The Department of Justice sued anti-Zionist protesters under the FACE Act in September for allegedly intimidating Jewish worshipers at a New Jersey synagogue.

The department also backed a lawsuit filed under the act against protesters who scuffled with Jews outside a Los Angeles synagogue.

Unlike those incidents, though, the protesters in New York City did not appear to have physically obstructed the entrance to the synagogue.

The protesters gathered right next to the entrance to the synagogue, though.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, reportedly apologized to the synagogue yesterday for the police not keeping the front entrance to the synagogue clear, describing the scene at the entrance as “chaotic,” according to The New York Post.