Lee Zeldin, who represented New York’s First Congressional District from 2015 to 2023 and is now the administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, was heckled and admonished by climate activists at the Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach on Sunday, in a chaotic scene that turned violent.
As the First District’s representative, Mr. Zeldin demonstrated near-absolute fealty to President Trump throughout the president’s first term, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and objecting to the certification of electoral votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hours after the armed insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
As E.P.A. administrator, he has overseen a rapid dismantling of the agency’s mission. In July alone, the agency has moved to eliminate its scientific research arm and fire hundreds of scientists, delay a mandate for utility companies to clean up toxic coal ash landfills, and, most recently, revoke the “endangerment finding,” the E.P.A.’s 2009 declaration that greenhouse gases threaten human health. That finding underpins limits set by previous administrations on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other sources.
Mr. Zeldin was the guest at the synagogue’s Global Breakfast Forum, sitting for an interview with the Hampton Synagogue’s Rabbi Marc Schneier.
The group Climate Defiance, whose mission statement includes ending fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and waters and elevation of climate change to a top political issue, posted approximately 1 minute and 45 seconds of video from the forum on social media. In it, Rabbi Schneier introduces Mr. Zeldin. “Whether you consider yourself conservative or moderate or liberal, on the East End of Long Island,” Mr. Zeldin begins before being interrupted.
Standing, a young man says, “We are in a climate crisis caused by the burning of fossil fuels.” As a man pulls him away from the gathering, the young man continues to speak. “And Mr. Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is making it impossible for us to regulate these life-threatening emissions.”
“If he’s not a member of the congregation, remove him,” the rabbi is heard saying, before addressing the protester. “Go back to Long Beach,” he tells him.
Mr. Zeldin is shown grinning broadly as many in the crowd jeer. “Welcome to my world,” he says.
Another young man is then seen. Standing, he tells Mr. Zeldin that “you are destroying our communities and our lives. You think greenhouse gas emissions are not dangerous for us?” He, too, is removed from the gathering.
A third protester leaps to his feet. “The Torah commands us to be stewards of the Earth!” the man exclaims. As he is removed, he yells, “This man is a monster! He hates the entire human race! History is going to remember you as a monster!”
The audience is addressed by a fourth man. “Your orange overlord does not care about any of you,” he tells them, an apparent reference to President Trump. “What are you going to say to your children when the Hamptons are under water?”
A man, seen walking toward the protester from behind, grabs a chair and violently hits the protester in the back as he is speaking. Another person standing nearby appears to confront the man holding the chair, who turns his makeshift weapon on that person.
Rabbi Avraham Bronstein of the Hampton Synagogue did not reply to a request for comment.
