New York Gov. Hochul considering banning facemasks amid spike in antisemitic attacks

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said her administration is considering imposing a ban on facemasks in the New York City subway system due to an increase of cases where people shield their identities that way while committing antisemitic attacks.

Speaking in Albany, the governor said she started taking steps towards this after seeing images of a "group donning masks who took over a subway car, scaring riders and chanting things about Hitler and wiping out Jews" this week.

Hochul didn't give more details about the episode, but it is likely she was referring to a video that was widely spread where a group of people with their faces covered asked people in a subway car to raise their hands if they were "Zionists" and warned them to leave if that was the case. "OK, no Zionists, we're good," concluded the leader of the chant at the end of the video.

According to ABC News, police are working to identify the leader of the call-and-response to file charges of attempted coercion against him. "Threatening New Yorkers based on their beliefs is not only vile, it's illegal and will not be tolerated. Anyone with information about those responsible for this illegal conduct should contact the NYPD immediately," said a New York City Hall spokesperson regarding the incident.

Hochul, on her end, said authorities "will not tolerate using masks to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior." "My team is working on a solution, but on a subway, people should not be able to hide behind a mask to commit crimes."

The governor acknowledged implementing the ban will be complicated, and advocacy groups have already warned against the measure: "Mask bans were originally developed to squash political protests and, like other laws that criminalize people, they will be selectively enforced — used to arrest, doxx, surveil, and silence people of color and protestors the police disagree with," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

"A mask ban would be easily violated by bad actors and, if someone's engages in unlawful actions, the judgement should be made based on the criminal behavior, not their attire," she added.

The Associated Press noted that most people wearing masks at protests do so because of concerns about police surveillance. Authorities didn't raise the issue during the over eight months since the Israel-Hamas war began, but a series of recent high-profile incidents besides the subway one seem to have prompted them to act.

This week, a group of pro-Palestine protestors gathered outside an event to commemorate the victims of the Nova Festival, who were murdered during the October 7 attack by Hamas that catalyzed the war. Protesters also vandalized the homes of Brooklyn Museum leaders, including that of its Jewish director, Anne Pasternak, who was called a "white-supremacist Zionist."