What is appropriate protest in a democratic society? There are many forms of dissent, including civil disobedience in which minor laws are broken, that Americans have come to accept over the decades as within the bounds of acceptable political expression.

A masked mob gathering outside an individual’s home in the dead of night, beating drums, blowing horns and shouting hateful slogans isn’t one of them.

Yet that’s what U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, the Democrat who represents much of Chicago’s northern suburbs, and his Highland Park neighbors endured from dozens who descended on their neighborhood at around 3 a.m. on June 29 to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. Highland Park police understandably weren’t staffed up at that hour to round up and arrest 40 demonstrators, even though they were unquestionably breaking laws.

We spoke with Schneider, who was home at the time, and what he described sounded harrowing indeed. Imagine being jolted awake at 3 a.m. to the sights and sounds of a masked and angry mob right outside your doors.

It wasn’t just Schneider who ended up targets of this mob. The neighborhood is predominantly Jewish, and once the rabble saw a sign in a neighbor’s yard that read, “We Stand with Israel,” they began yelling, “Zionists, go to hell,” the congressman told us.

Living close by is a 98-year-old woman, as well as a family with a baby, he said.

So in many respects this wasn’t just an attack on a member of Congress for his policy positions. This was an attack on a neighborhood made up mainly of Jewish residents. That was grotesque and antisemitic.

“These people are calling for Israel to surrender and be eliminated is, I guess, the nicest way I can say it,” Schneider told us. “They came to terrorize my neighbors to try to change my position. They know neither my neighbors nor me.”

In fact, nearly 100 residents gathered the next afternoon, June 30, on Schneider’s patio, along with representatives of the Highland Park Police Department, to discuss what had happened and what to do if there’s a recurrence. The discussion was positive, Schneider said, and he was touched by the support he and his family received. His neighbors told him not to change a thing in terms of his Israel-Hamas positions.

A few days later, on July 4, Schneider’s office in Washington was targeted. Pictures on the walls outside the office of hostages still held by Hamas were ripped up and torn down. Schneider isn’t the only member of Congress with photographs of hostages up outside his office. But, as far as he knows, his was the only one targeted in this fashion.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has said strikingly little about Israel and Gaza and has next to nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy, also had his home in Chicago visited by demonstrators, many of whom were holding banners identical to the ones outside Schneider’s home. Pritzker’s apparently was targeted primarily because he’s Jewish.

Of course, there are plenty of other politicians, including in Illinois, who have voted exactly as Schneider has on the Israel-Gaza issue, but their homes haven’t been the sites of predawn protests. We must conclude that the targeting of Schneider and Pritzker is due to their Jewish identities.

Needless to say, this form of protest won’t change any minds. It’s hateful harassment, pure and simple.

“Everyone I know wants this war to come to an end,” said Schneider, who has supported Palestinian statehood for years and is an ardent First Amendment advocate.

The Oregonian/OregonLive publishes a selection of the views of editorial boards across the country, as provided through wire services. Separately, The Oregonian/OregonLive’s editorials can be found here.

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