Suozzi, Knott, Jewish groups rally for Right to Worship Act

Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and evangelical groups also turned out in support of the federal buffer zone legislation that would protect against harassment outside of places of worship

September 16, 2026

Reps. Brad Knott (R-NC) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) rallied outside the Capitol on Wednesday alongside more than two dozen representatives of religious community organizations in support of the Right to Worship Act, their federal bill establishing buffer zones outside of religious institutions to protect them from disruptions.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has been involved in supporting the bill behind the scenes, also expressed his support for it in a statement to Jewish Insider.

“Religious liberty is regarded as our ‘First Freedom.’ Our Founders listed it first in the Bill of Rights because they understood how essential it was to the foundation of our Republic. But that right rings hollow if worshippers must brave harassment or worry for their safety as they exercise their religion,” Johnson said. 

“Americans of all religious affiliations deserve the right to do so without fear and the Right to Worship Act ensures they can, while also maintaining the First Amendment right to peaceful protest,” he continued. “I commend Rep. Knott for his leadership on this legislation and his steadfast defense of our fundamental freedoms.”

Knott and Suozzi’s press conference included representatives from various nondenominational Jewish groups and the Orthodox movement, as well as leaders from the evangelical, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and even Scientology communities. The Reform and Conservative movements are also supporting the bill.

Knott and Suozzi praised each others’ work on the bill and ability to compromise to put out this consensus bill.

“I commend Rep. Suozzi again for his monumental effort in assembling this team behind us, this team around the country, that was so valuable in crafting this legislation,” Knott said.

“It’s a very rare hallmark in this town when you have a senior legislator like Rep. Suozzi come to a freshman legislator on the House floor and say, ‘Look, we’re trying to do the same thing. I will lay down my bill and join forces with you so long as we can get this thing across the finish line.’ And had he not done that, I don’t know if we’d be here today,” he continued.

Suozzi previously had introduced separate buffer zone legislation that contained a somewhat different formula than the Right to Worship Act.

Knott said he’d been in contact with various colleagues including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction on the bill, and has seen significant support.

Suozzi likewise praised Knott as “a former prosecutor, new member of Congress from North Carolina, very well respected by his colleagues, and somebody that I personally admire, especially getting to know him over the past couple months, and listening to him speak, and seeing his intellect and his compassion work together to try and get a bill done across party lines.”

At one point in the press conference, a shofar sounded in the distance from somewhere on the Capitol grounds.

Also speaking in support of the bill were Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt; Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut; Jessica Bernton, the American Jewish Committee’s director of congressional affairs; Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center; Rabbi Yossie Charner, Agudath Israel of America’s director of congressional affairs; Elizabeth Cullen, Hadassah’s director of government relations; Hadas Alterman, Stand With Us’ director of legislative strategy; and Combat Antisemitism Movement President of U.S. Affairs Alyza Lewin.

Diament urged that the bill be the first order of business when the House returns in November, after its extended recess that began Wednesday.

They were joined by representatives from the National Association of Evangelicals, American Muslim and Multi-faith Women’s Empowerment Council, Hindu American Foundation, United Sikhs, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (a Hindu group) and the Coalition of Hindus of North America.

Suozzi and Knott acknowledged that the legislation’s applicability to the repeated incidents during which anti-Israel protesters have demonstrated outside of or broken into events at synagogues promoting aliyah to Israel or land sales in Israel and the West Bank would likely have to be litigated in court if the bill passes.

“There’s going to be litigation that will come. That’s why we spent so much time speaking to constitutional experts about this process,” he said. “There’s going to be litigation about that question and about others as well. The bill really focuses heavily on religious services, so that’ll be a real question and a real challenge as to whether or not that will withstand the constitutional challenge.”

He added that he hopes the bill “sends a message that we all have to do better in the process.”

Knott added that the bill requires “a substantial, focused, intentional effort to prevent someone from entering or otherwise worshipping. Within the buffer zone, if you hold a sign that says, ‘Israel, do better,’ that’s perfectly consistent with this law. If I grab a worshipper by the lapel pin and said, ‘You’re committing whatever crime you allege,’ that’s a disruption that’s not sanctioned with this bill.”

He said, “The definition targets the focused, intentional disruption, not the benign peaceful [one],” adding that the bill is intentionally focused on incidents in which “where people use an organized, established house of worship to target specific people.”

During the press conference, Suozzi specifically credited a constituent, Abraham Hamra, with first bringing the buffer zone issue to his attention and prompting him to craft his original bill, the SACRED Act.

Hamra told JI that his family is from Syria and came to the United States to seek religious freedom. He said he felt “we couldn’t stand idly by and just complain” after protesters disrupted an event in Park East Synagogue in nearby Manhattan. He started a petition calling for buffer zone legislation, which gathered 10,000 signatures.

A member of the board of Long Island’s Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center brought the petition to Suozzi’s attention and connected him with Hamra.

“This bill is now a reality, and honestly, it is a bill that’s going to protect what’s great about America, because the First Amendment gives us the right to speech and the right to worship,” Hamra said. “If we protect both of those rights, we continue having the America that many refugees flee to, the America that enables so much success, and that’s why I started this petition, hoping that this bill would be introduced.”

Both Suozzi and Knott also credited various leaders from the Jewish and other communities for their work on the bill, including Greenblatt and the ADL and Diament and the OU, as well as Hudson Bay Capital CEO Sander Gerber and Moshe Davis, the former director of the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, who have been heavily involved in the effort.