In June 2024, protesters in Los Angeles targeted a synagogue hosting an Israel real estate event, accusing organizers of “stealing Palestinian land.”

Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the event at the Adas Torah synagogue in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood.

Scuffles broke out, and demonstrators allegedly threw punches at synagogue members, chanted for an intifada, used a skateboard as a weapon and wielded bear spray.

The protest also allegedly prevented worshipers from accessing afternoon prayers at the synagogue, prompting a federal complaint against the organizers based on the novel use of a law meant to protect abortion clinics.

The issue of synagogue protests surfaced again this week after a caustic demonstration outside a New York City synagogue that has alarmed the city’s Jews and prompted questions about a response. Jewish community legal advocates believe that the abortion law could provide one such response.

Blocking access to houses of worship is illegal under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Lawmakers enacted the measure in 1994 to protect the entrances to abortion clinics, but the text of the law also applies to “a place of religious worship.”

The law makes it illegal to injure or interfere with people who are seeking to exercise their First Amendment right to religious freedom at a place of worship. Interference includes deploying force, threats of force, or physical obstruction, the law says.

Lawyers filed a lawsuit under the FACE Act against the organizers of the Los Angeles protest, the first time the law had been used in such a context, said Mark Goldfeder of the National Jewish Advocacy Center legal group, one of the lawyers on the case.

“Synagogues, and events held within them that are tied to Jewish religious education, observance, or communal religious life, fall squarely within this protection,” Goldfeder said Friday of the FACE Act.

Federal law takes a broad view of religious........

© The Times of Israel